Editing Haute-Provence Observatory (section)

== Telescopes ==

The four main telescopes at OHP are [[reflecting telescope]]s with [[primary mirror]]s of diameters 1.93 m, 1.52 m, 1.20 m and 0.80 m.

The 1.93 m telescope was built by [[Grubb Parsons]] and installed at the site in 1958. One of the instruments available on the 1.93 m telescope was the high resolution [[ELODIE spectrograph]], replaced in 2006 by the [[SOPHIE échelle spectrograph]].  [[Michel Mayor]] and [[Didier Queloz]] discovered the [[51 Pegasi b|planet]] orbiting the star [[51 Pegasi]] from observations made using ELODIE on the 1.93 m telescope. They won half of the [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] 2019 for this discovery.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2019/summary/|title=The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019|publisher= [[Nobel Media AB]]|access-date= 8 October 2019}}</ref>

The 1.52 m is almost identical to the 1.52 m telescope at the [[European Southern Observatory]] in [[Chile]], and has been in use at OHP since 1967. It is predominantly used for [[spectroscopy|spectroscopic]] studies, using the high resolution spectrograph ''Aurélie''.

The 1.20 m telescope was the first to be installed at the site, and has been in use since 1943. It was originally installed at the [[Observatoire de Paris]] in 1872. It is now equipped with a direct [[charge-coupled device]] (CCD) camera at the f/6 Newton focus and is mainly used for studies of variability of X-ray sources, imaging of galaxies and H II regions and astrometry of faint solar system objects.

The 0.80 m telescope was first used during site testing at nearby [[Forcalquier]] in 1932 before the construction of the observatory, where it was later moved in 1945. The telescope is equipped with CCD cameras allowing high quality observations to be made using it, but unlike the other telescopes on site which have computer-controlled pointing systems, the 0.80 m telescope must still be pointed manually, using [[setting circles]]. It is often used by visiting undergraduate astronomy students.

Other telescopes at OHP are operated by other organizations, including a 1 m telescope belonging to [[Geneva Observatory]], a 0.5 m telescope operated by the [[French Space Agency]] for satellite tracking, and the Berlin Exoplanet Search Telescope, a 0.2 m telescope used to search for [[exoplanet]]s by observing [[Astronomical transit|transits]] across solar-type stars.