The Hexapod-Telescope (HPT) was a 1.5-metre (59 in) Ritchey-Chrétien optical telescope, that operated in 2006-2017 in the Cerro Armazones Observatory (OCA) in northern Chile, and is currently decommissioned.
Instead of the typical mounting where the telescope moves on two rotating axes, the mirror cell was supported by six extensible (variable-length) struts, an arrangement known as a Stewart platform.
The HPT showed great potential for the construction of future very large telescopes,[2] but as it had accumulated several technical problems, and could not be repaired due to a lack of replacement parts, it was decommissioned in 2017.
The HPT was equipped with the Bochum Echelle Spectrograph for the Optical (BESO),[3][4] developed by joint effort of AIRUB and the Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl.
BESO is a copy of the Fiber-fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph (FEROS) operated by the European Southern Observatory.