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ACRONYMS
within the AURA Organization

  1. AOSS
  2. ATST
  3. AURA
  4. CTIO
  5. DPP
  6. GEMINI
  7. GONG
  8. GSMT
  9. LSST
  10. NIO
  11. NOAO
  12. NRAO
  13. NSO
  14. REQLESS
  15. SOAR
  16. STScI
  17. TMT
  18. WIYN

 

  • AOSS stands for the AURA Observatory Support Services, a division of AURA, is located in Santiago and La Serena, Chile. It is operated by AURA to support the CTIO, GEMINI, and SOAR telescopes in Chile along with other tenants at the Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachon sites.

·         ATST stands for Advanced Technology Solar Telescope and is a collaborative effort within the solar community to design and produce the next generation solar telescope. See http://atst.nso.edu/ for more detailed information on the telescope.

·         AURA stands for the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. and is the corporation that oversees the NSF contracts under which NOAO functions. AURA is an Arizona corporation and is the legal entity under which NOAO operates. For further information, see http://www.aura-astronomy.org/

·         CTIO stands for the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, an NOAO facility, located near La Serena, Chile. For more information on this observatory, see http://www.ctio.noao.edu/.

·         DPP stands for the Data Products Program, an NOAO facility, located in Tucson and in Chile. For more information on this program, see http://www.noao.edu/dpp/about_dpp.html.

·         GEMINI is short for the International Gemini Observatory, an international project managed by AURA, with 8-Meter telescopes located on Mauna Kea near Hilo, HI and on Cerro Pachon near La Serena, Chile. For more information on the Gemini telescopes, see http://www.gemini.edu.

·         GONG stands for the Global Oscillation Network Group. Managed by the National Solar Observatory, GONG facilities are located at:

o        Tucson, Arizona

o        The Big Bear Observatory, California

o        The High Altitude Observatory at Mauna Loa, Hawaii

o        The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Chile

o        The Learmonth Solar Observatory, Australia

o        The Udaipur Solar Observatory, India

o        The Instituto de Astrofisicas de Canarias, the Canary Islands, Spain

For more information on the GONG network, see http://gong.nso.edu/.

·         GSMT stands for Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope. For more information on the GSMT, see http://www.aura-nio.noao.edu/book/index.html.

·         LSST stands for Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is a proposed ground-based 8.4-meter, 10 square-degree-field telescope that will provide digital imaging of faint astronomical objects across the entire sky. The effort to build the LSST is overseen by the LSST Corporation, founded by Research Corporation, the University of Arizona, the University of Washington, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. For more information on the LSST project, see http://www.lsst.org/lsst_home.shtml.

·         NIO stands for the New Initiatives Office and is a partnership between NOAO and Gemini. NIO's mission is to ensure broad astronomy community access to a 30-meter-class telescope contemporary in time with ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) and NGST (Next Generation Space Telescope) by playing a key role in scientific and technical studies leading to the creation of the GSMT. For detailed information on the NIO, see http://www.aura-nio.noao.edu/.

·         NOAO stands for the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, a division of AURA, located in Tucson, AZ. NOAO consists of the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory near La Serena, Chile. For more information on NOAO, see http://www.noao.edu/.

·         NRAO stands for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a research facility of the U.S. National Science Foundation. NRAO provides state-of-the-art radio telescope facilities for use by the scientific community. For more information, see http://www.nrao.edu/.

·         NSO stands for the National Solar Observatory, a division of AURA. NSO currently operates under the same AURA-NSF cooperative agreement as NOAO, and is located at the Sacramento Peak Observatory in Sunspot, NM and on the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, AZ. For more information on NSO, see http://www.nso.edu/.

·         REQLESS stands for a web-based requisitioning system produced by NOAO Procurement and designed to support NOAO facilities. For more information on REQLESS, see http://www.noao.edu/cas/terms/reqlessv2help.pdf.

·         SOAR stands for the SOuthern Astrophysical Research Telescope located on Cerro Pachon near La Serena, Chile. The country of Brazil, the University of North Carolina, the University of Michigan, and NOAO sponsor the project. For more information on the SOAR telescope, see http://www.soartelescope.org.

·         STScI stands for the Space Telescope Science Institute, a division of AURA and funded by NASA, located in Baltimore, MD. For more information on the Institute, see http://www.stsci.edu/institute/.

·         TMT stands for the Thirty Meter Telescope Project, a collaboration of Caltech, University of California (UC), the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA). The TMT design and development activity is currently funded by a grant to Caltech and UC from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The TMT project office is being established in Pasadena to lead and coordinate the work in Pasadena and at partner locations. For further information on the TMT Project, see http://www.astro.caltech.edu/observatories/tmt/.

·         WIYN stands for the name of the institutions that have joined together to build and operate a state-of-the-art, 3.5-meter telescope located on Kitt Peak. WIYN is operated by the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, Yale University and NOAO. For more information on the WIYN telescope, see http://www.noao.edu/wiyn/wiyn.html.

 


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  Last updated 11/12/2004.