On Friday 13 December 2019, the Dean of Science at UCT, Prof Maano Ramutsindela, formally opened the second optical teaching telescope. This is a new 14-inch Celestron telescope dedicated towards optical spectroscopy. The Tony Fairall Teaching Observatory of the Department of Astronomy at UCT now consists of two 14-in Celestron optical teaching telescopes, and one 3-m radio teaching telescope. The latter is housed at the SAAO.

These facilities are used for training our undergraduate students relevant techniques in observational astronomy as part of the astrophysics major at UCT. By making these telescopes remotely operable, it is foreseen that they will also be used in future by students and learners across South Africa and the African continent. The radio telescope is already remotely operable.