06-28-2016, 06:18 PM
Latest news from the TMT:
"Representing the TMT organization, Fengchuan Li told delegates at the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation conference in Edinburgh, UK, that sites in Baja California in Mexico, the Canary Islands, and Chile were now being evaluated as alternatives."
http://optics.org/news/7/6/47
My gut feeling is Mexico is the favorite; a northern hemisphere site with less light pollution and better IR characteristics than the Canary Islands. Building it in Chile would likely be a desperation measure, as it would mean no access to the northern sky by a TMT-class telescope.
"Representing the TMT organization, Fengchuan Li told delegates at the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation conference in Edinburgh, UK, that sites in Baja California in Mexico, the Canary Islands, and Chile were now being evaluated as alternatives."
http://optics.org/news/7/6/47
My gut feeling is Mexico is the favorite; a northern hemisphere site with less light pollution and better IR characteristics than the Canary Islands. Building it in Chile would likely be a desperation measure, as it would mean no access to the northern sky by a TMT-class telescope.