Planetary Defense 1.3-meter Telescope

The University of North Carolina and the Astronomical Research Institute partner to operate the Planetary Defense 1.3-meter Telescope. This and the Planetary Defense 1.0-meter Telescope are so named to reflect their primary mission of carrying out southern-skies astrometric follow-up observations of Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs). Using the 1.0- and 1.3-meter together allows not only more asteroids to be monitored each night, but also simultaneous observations to rapidly characterize asteroids after discovery.

The telescope was formerly known as the SMARTS 1.3-meter Telescope and was operated by the Small and Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System (SMARTS) Consortium. The SMARTS 1.3-meter Telescope was used for the 2-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS), which was an astronomical survey of the whole sky in the infrared, before SMARTS took over its operation in 2001 following the survey’s completion. 

As of 2022 it is operated in robotic mode, thanks to NASA awards for carrying out rapid astrometric and photometric observations of NEAs.