The IR facility of Campo Imperatore

The AZT-24 telescope is currently the most advanced telescope working at the Campo Imperatore Observatory and the only one with infrared instrumentation available on the italian soil. It is a 1.1m Ritchey-Cretien telescope equipped with a near infrared camera (1 ÷ 2.5 μm) with the standard broad band filters (J,H,K,K’), some narrow band filters and grisms for low resolution spectroscopy. AZT-24 is controlled by an automatic software that allows remote operations and makes easier the survey programs by performing unattended observations on sequences of targets. At Campo Imperatore, AZT-24 is joined by an optical instrument, the Schmidt telescope, that widens the wavelength coverage accessible from one single site from 0.35 to 2.5 μm. The most relevant scientific results obtained during the two years of operation will be shortly illustrated.