China's largest general-purpose precision survey telescope to be based in Qinghai

China's largest general-purpose precision survey telescope is expected to be based in Lenghu town, Northwest China's Qinghai Province, after a cooperation agreement was signed on Sunday between the Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the government of the Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai.

The 4.2-meter diameter ground-based specialized astrometric telescope is optimally designed for high-precision astrometric measurements of solar system objects, with an investment of about 300 million yuan ($41 million), Ping Yiding, a senior engineer at the PMO explained, as reported by China News Service.

It will be the largest general-purpose precision survey telescope in China and the largest specialized telescope for astrometric measurements in the world after its completion, serving a range of all kinds of astronomical science objectives, Ping said.

The Lenghu astronomical observation base, located in Saishiteng Mountain, Lenghu town, sits at an average altitude of about 4,000 meters. After a number of preliminary monitoring and analyses, the Chinese and foreign astronomical communities unanimously agreed that the region has unique advantages for astronomical observation and research in terms of geographical location, climate, air cleanliness, and altitude. It also fully meets the demand for scientific research on optical and infrared macro-astronomical equipment, according to the report.

The selected site will end a bottleneck that has long constrained the development of optical astronomical observation in China, and fill the gap of world-class optical astronomical observatory sites in the Eastern Hemisphere. It also provides extremely valuable strategic and scarce resources for the formation of a complete time and space observation network on a global scale and for the promotion of the development of international optical astronomy.

The PMO and the autonomous prefecture government on Sunday also signed a cooperation agreement on the 2.5-meter diameter multi-terminal universal telescope project, according to the same report.