A

David

Darling

Joint Astronomy Centre

The Joint Astronomy Centre (JAC) was a facility that incorporated the 15-m James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and the 3.8-m United Kingdom Infrared Telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea along with the Centre's Hawaii headquarters in Hilo. The facility was operated by the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh on behalf of the Science and Engineering Research Council of the United Kingdom, the Nederlandse Organisatie Voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, and the National Research Council of Canada. The JAC also maintained the Starlink Project between 2006 and 2015. Following withdrawal of funding by the partner nations, on 1 March 1 2015, the Joint Astronomy Centre closed and the facility was handed over to the East Asian Observatory which now runs the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope.