History
In the late 1960s, the Astronomy Committee of the UK's Science Research Council (SRC, the forerunner of STFC) considered the importance of astronomical observations at submillimetre and millimetre wavelengths. After a series of proposals and debates, in 1975, the SRC millimetre steering committee concluded that it would be possible to construct a 15-metre diameter telescope capable of observing at wavelengths down to 750 µm. The project, then called the National New Technology Telescope (NNTT), was to be an 80/20 per cent collaboration with the Netherlands Organisation for the Advancement of Science. Site tests were made at Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the Pinaleno Mountains in Arizona, and a site in Chile; and Mauna Kea was chosen. The NNTT is a unique facility, larger and with a more instruments than competing telescopes such as the CSO and SMT.
The final specifications called for the "world's largest telescope optimised for submillimetre wavelengths." It was to be a parabolic 15-metre antenna composed of 276 individually adjustable panels with a surface accuracy of better than 50 µm. It would be an altitude-azimuth mounted Cassegrain telescope with a tertiary mirror to direct the incoming radiation onto a number of different receivers. The antenna and mountings were to be protected from the elements by a co-rotating carousel with a transparent membrane stretched across the carousel aperture. Building work started in 1983 and went well apart from a small delay caused by the hijacking of the ship carrying the telescope across the Pacific by modern-day pirates. The telescope saw first light in 1987. The name for the final facility was changed to the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope.
The JCMT is currently funded under a tripartite agreement between the United Kingdom (55 percent), Canada (25 percent), and the Netherlands (20 percent). The telescope itself is operated by the Joint Astronomy Centre (JAC), from Hilo, Hawaii. The telescope site agreement with the University of Hawaii provides observer accommodation and infrastructure in exchange for open access to international proposals and 10 per cent of the observing time for the University's own projects. Proposals for telescope usage are submitted to one of the national Telescope Allocation Groups (TAGs) and if successful are awarded time in the next six-monthly semester.
Read more about this topic: James Clerk Maxwell Telescope
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