Abstract

The Carlsberg Meridian Telescope (formerly the Carlsberg Automatic Meridian Circle) is dedicated to carrying out high-precision optical astrometry. It is operated jointly by the Copenhagen University Observatory, the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge and the Real Instituto y Observatorio de la Armada en San Fernando. It began operation in May 1984. The telescope is a refractor with an objective of 17.8-cm diameter and focal length of 266-cm. The current observing procedure is entirely automatic, with the acquisition controlled by a Pentium PC running DOS, while the data reduction is carried out in the morning on another Pentium running Linux.