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Best location for celestial telescopes is in Chile

This letter asks the question, “Why in Hawaii?” The question of why the TMT telescope must be built in Hawaii has yet to be asked by the media or addressed by TMT.

The pre-eminent location for celestial telescopes in the entire world is the Atacama desert in Chile. At this time, over 70 percent of the world’s telescopes are located there. The visibility there is the best in the world. There are 12 observatories located there now. Each observatory hosts from two to 12 separate telescope installations. At least four more new observatory sites are being developed.

So the obvious questions become, “Why not move the TMT telescope to Chile?” and “Whose vested interests will fight to keep it here?”

Tom Abbot

Makawao

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