The NANTEN Submillimeter Observatory
The NANTEN2 Observatory (NANTEN is japanese for southern sky, 南天 nan = south, ten = heaven, sky) is a collaboration between research institutes in Japan (Nagoya and Osaka University), South Korea (Seoul National University), Germany (KOSMA, Universität zu Köln, Argelander-Institut Universität Bonn), Switzerland (ETH Zürich), University of New South Wales (UNSW), and Chile (Universidad de Chile).
The observatory is located at 4865 m altitude on Pampa la Bola in the Atacama desert, Chile. Operation started in 2006 May.
Equipped with a 4 m submillimeter telescope, NANTEN2 will be used to survey the southern sky in molecular and atomic spectral lines between 110 and 880 GHz (2.6 mm to 350 micron wave length). The highest observing frequencies are covered by the KOSMA SMART receiver, a dual-frequency, 2x8 pixel array receiver operating between 460 and 880 GHz, and KOSMA array Acousto Optical Spectrometers (AOS) as backends.