page_title: Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope / Construction
caption_attribution_description: English: Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope on Mount Graham, Arizona, image taken by Yvette Cendes, 2004
context_page_description: The 1.8 meter Alice P. Lennon Telescope and its Thomas J. Bannan Astrophysics Facility, known together as the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, is a Gregorian telescope observing in the optical and infrared situated on Mount Graham in southeast Arizona, United States. It achieved its first light in 1993.
  VATT is part of the Mount Graham International Observatory and is operated by the Vatican Observatory, one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world, in partnership with The University of Arizona.
context_section_description: The primary mirror was manufactured at The University of Arizona's Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory, which pioneered both the spin-casting and the stressed-lap polishing techniques which are being used for telescope mirrors that include the 6.5 meter aperture MMT and Magellan telescopes, and the two 8.4 meter mirrors of the Large Binocular Telescope.
caption: VATT from the balcony of the nearby LBT
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