The Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope (CFHT French: ) is a optical/infrared telescope located near the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi at an altitude of , within the Maunakea Observatories. The telescope has a Prime Focus/Cassegrain configuration, and has been in operation since 1979.
CFHT had proposed redeveloping its summit facility into the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer, replacing the existing telescope with an segmented telescope while reusing much of the existing observatory infrastructure, including the foundation, telescope pier, and portions of the support building. As of 2026, however, the project remains on hold pending review of governance and leasing of observatories at this site. In the interim, the existing telescope will remain operating into the 2030s.
Funding The corporation is bound by a tripartite agreement between the University of Hawaii at Manoa, in the United States, the National Research Council (NRC) in Canada and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France. CFHT also has partnerships with the National Astronomical Observatory of China (NAOC), the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) in Taiwan, the National Laboratory of Astrophysics (LNA) in Brazil and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) in Korea. The contributions from these associate partners help fund CFHT's future instrumentation. Currently, CFHT observing time is offered to scientists from all the seven countries in the partnership. Astronomers from the European Union can also submit proposals through the Optical Infrared Coordination Network for Astronomy (OPTICON) access program.
Instruments CFHT currently operates five instruments:
MegaPrime/MegaCam,MegaCam paper on ADS a one-square-degree field high-resolution CCD mosaic of 40 CCDs totalling 378 megapixels WIRCam (Wide-Field Infrared Camera),WIRCam paper on ADS an infrared mosaic of 4 detectors totalling 16 megapixels, optimized for the J, H, and K spectral bands ESPaDOnS (Echelle SpectroPolarimetric Device for the Observation of Stars at CFHT),ESPaDOnS paper on ADS an echelle spectrograph/spectropolarimeter SITELLE (Spectromètre Imageur à Transformée de Fourier pour l'Etude en Long et en Large de raies d'Emission), a wide-field Fourier transform spectrograph SPIRou (Spectropolarimètre Infrarouge), a near-infrared spectropolarimeter
Notable discoveries In March 2025, astronomers using the CFHT announced the discovery of 128 new moons of Saturn, bringing the gas giant's total number of confirmed satellites to 274.
Outreach CFHT, in collaboration with Coelum Astronomia, maintains a public-outreach website called "Hawaiian Starlight" which offers extremely high-quality versions of CFHT images in various formats including a yearly calendar.
Gallery
See also List of largest optical reflecting telescopes
References
External links
The Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Corporation (official site) Hawaiian Starlight National Research Council (Canada) Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France) National Astronomical Observatories of China (China) ACADEMIA SINICA Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (Taiwan) Laboratório Nacional de Astrofisica (Brazil) Korean Space Science Institute (Korea) Coelum Astronomia WIRCAM optical configuration Optical Infrared Coordination Network for Astronomy (OPTICON)