Roque de los Muchachos Observatory

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory

Overview of some of the telescopes at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory.
Organization	IAC
Code	950
Location	La Palma, Canary Islands, Atlantic Ocean (Island is part of Spain)
Coordinates	28°45′49″N 17°53′41″W / 28.7636°N 17.8947°W / 28.7636; -17.8947Coordinates: 28°45′49″N 17°53′41″W / 28.7636°N 17.8947°W / 28.7636; -17.8947
Altitude	2,396 metres (7,861 ft)
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Telescopes
MAGIC (telescope) 2 x 17 m gamma-ray imaging Cherenkov telescopes Gran Telescopio Canarias 10.4 m reflecting telescope William Herschel Telescope 4.2 m reflecting telescope Telescopio Nazionale Galileo 3.58 m reflecting telescope Nordic Optical Telescope 2.56 m reflecting telescope Isaac Newton Telescope 2.5 m reflecting telescope Liverpool Telescope 2.0 m robotic telescope (also reflecting) Mercator Telescope 1.2 m reflecting telescope Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope 1.0 m refracting vacuum solar telescope Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope 1.0 m reflecting telescope Dutch Open Telescope 0.45 m reflecting solar telescope Carlsberg Meridian Telescope 0.18 m refracting telescope SuperWASP 5 wide angle cameras with 0.11 m diameter lenses HEGRA 17 Cherenkov telescopes, 3 m diameter now dismantled
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Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Spanish: Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, ORM) is an astronomical observatory located in the municipality of Garafía on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands. The observatory site is operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, based on nearby Tenerife. ORM is part of the European Northern Observatory.

The seeing statistics at ORM make it the second-best location for optical and infrared astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii. The site also has some of the most extensive astronomical facilities in the Northern Hemisphere; its fleet of telescopes includes the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias, the world's largest single-aperture optical telescope as of July 2009.; the William Herschel Telescope (second largest in Europe), and the adaptive optics corrected Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope, which provides the highest resolution solar imaging of any telescope.

The observatory began operation around 1984 with the Isaac Newton Telescope, which was moved to La Palma from the Royal Greenwich Observatory site at Herstmonceux Castle in Sussex, England. The move was troubled, and it is widely recognized that it would have been cheaper to build a new telescope on-site rather than to move an existing one.