The Danish 1.54-metre telescope, built by Grubb–Parsons, has been in use at La Silla since 1979. It was completely overhauled in 1993 and is now equipped with the Danish Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera spectrograph/camera. The telescope has allowed astronomers to make several first discoveries. In 2005 astronomers showed that short, intense bursts of gamma-ray emission most likely originate from the violent collision of two merging neutron stars, ending a long debate (eso0533). In 2006, astronomers using a network of telescopes scattered across the globe, including the Danish 1.54-metre Telescope, discovered an exoplanet only about five times as massive as the Earth, and circling its parent star in about ten years (eso0603). This telescope has also been used to produce many impressive astronomical images.

Science goals

Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) follow-up, photometry, comets

Links

• Images taken with the Danish 1.54-metre telescope
• Images taken of the Danish 1.54-metre telescope
• All-sky camera live
• More information is available in this article from The Messenger and on the science pages.
• ESO press releases with results from the Danish 1.54-metre telescope