The Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) is located near the summit of Mauna Kea mountain on Hawaii's Big Island at an altitude of 4,204 meters (13,793 feet), part of the Mauna Kea Observatory. Operational since 1979,[1] the telescope is a Prime Focus/Cassegrain configuration with a usable aperture diameter of 3.58 metres (11.7 ft).
CFHT is currently considering a refurbishment to the facility in the 2020s. The facility would be reconstructed with a new 11-m telescope to produce the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer, retaining the same base building and infrastructure. First light is expected no earlier than 2029.[citation needed]
WIRCam (Wide-Field Infrared Camera),[3] an infrared mosaic of 4 detectors totalling 16 megapixels, optimized for the J, H, and K spectral bands[4]
ESPaDOnS (Echelle SpectroPolarimetric Device for the Observation of Stars at CFHT),[5] an echellespectrograph/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[6]
CFHT, in collaboration with Coelum Astronomia, maintains a public-outreach website called "Hawaiian Starlight"[8] which offers extremely high-quality versions of CFHT images in various formats including a yearly calendar.