Infrastructure DAS

Our library, specialized in Astronomy and Astrophysics, was founded in the mid-1800s when President Manuel Montt became interested in buying U.S. instruments and buildings for the construction of a National Observatory for the Republic of Chile. Along with these instruments, the first books from our collection were acquired. With time, the collection grew thanks to donations, exchanges and permanent acquisitions. It became a service whose main mission was to support research and teaching, especially since 1965 when the National Astronomical Observatory became part of the Department of Astronomy of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Mathematics of the Universidad de Chile.

Our entire collection of books, theses and journals is available in the Database Library (Bello Catalogue), Universidad de Chile. Our library holds the Montt collection (colección Montt), which includes over a thousand ancient books published between 1700 and 1800, along with a modern collection comprising around 6,000 titles, mostly related to astronomy and astrophysics. We also own books related to the area of mathematics and physics.

Notably, the library possesses:

• 80 journals titles (26 of which are active).

• Publications from observatories and astronomical institutions.

• 12 journals subscribed online.

• ebooks Database.
     • Springer Link.
       Access to over 29,000 ebooks from the year 2005 to date. Subject coverage: engeneering, chemistry, physics, materials, astronomy, business, environment, computer science and others.
     • Science Direct
       Over 2,600 ebooks between 2008 and 2012 divided into 24 subject areas such as chemistry, computer science, earth sciences, energy, ate, math materials physics, astronomy, biotechnology, environment, economics and business.

Bibliographic novelties

Our office hours are Monday to Friday from 14:30 to 18:30 hours.

To contact our library to write an email to nalvarez@das.uchile.cl or phone 2977 1146..

In the Laboratory of Millimeter Waves is designed, built and tested receivers for radio astronomy use. It consists of a multidisciplinary team of astronomers, engineers, technicians and graduate students, along with the Department of Electrical Engineering (DIE) of the Universidad de Chile.

The laboratory is currently involved in several projects related to millimeter wave receivers, including ASTE, NANTEN2 and ALMA observatories in collaboration with countries in Europe, North America and Japan. It also has a small radio telescope for use in teaching and technological development testing.

Since 2002, thanks to a donation from the Japanese people, the Department of Astronomy at the Universidad de Chile has a modern 45cm Cassegrain telescope, brand Goto, which allows astronomical observations, images and spectroscopy. Its main use is to train undergraduate and graduate students in astronomy, in handling telescopes and instruments with characteristics similar to those used in the large observatories of northern Chile.

The Coronado SolarMax90 telescope, allows observation of the Sun and its spots thanks to its working bandwith and specially designed filters. This instrument is used in the Daytime visits program, which are exclusive for schools, giving attendees the opportunity to make observations with a telescope.

It is a telescope with a small radio area, whose objective is to observe large areas of the sky in reasonable periods (a few years). The device initially operated at Cerro Tololo Observatory through a partnership with Columbia University, and was moved to Cerro Calán between 2009 and 2010.

The current scientific use of the radio telescope includes two major themes: the study of the densest regions of molecular clouds where stars form, and the making of a complete map of carbon monoxide (CO) in the Southern Hemisphere, complementing the one of the Northern Hemisphere already underway at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University with a similar telescope.

The machine shop comprises the high precision (1 um in positioning) CNC machine (Computer Numerically Controlled Drilling and Milling Machine), High precision (1 um in positioning), a turning machine, the measuring microscopes (1 um precision and 40x magnification), with which optical and microwave components are manufactured. In addition, micro-assembly facilities (hot plate, precision weighting scale, soldering station and stereo microscopes).

This german refractor telescope has a 28cm lens, and is part of the National Astronomical Observatory (NAO) since 1913. During the first half of the twentieth century, the Heyde telescope observed variable stars and measured their parallax, and the diameter of Jupiter. Although not in operation for 50 years, it is in excellent condition and its main use today is in outreach.

This french photographic refractor came to Chile in 1893 to contribute to the first photographic chart of the sky and remained operational for more than 90 years. With it, over a thousand photographic plates of stars, planets and supernovas were obtained.

The Department maintains a Maksutov telescope of Russian origin at Cerro El Roble. This telescope was especially optimized for wide field astrophotography, usually more than two by two degrees. For example, the Maksutov astrograph could photograph five degrees by five degrees on a 18 x 18 cm photographic plate. Cerro Tololo’s Schmidt camera could photograph five degrees by five degrees on a plate 73/4 by 73/4 inches (19.7 x 19.7 cm).