MeerLICHT – the Dutch translation for ‘more light’ – is a fully robotic 0.65-m telescope which aims to provide a simultaneous, real-time optical view of the radio (transient) sky as observed by MeerKAT, South Africa’s SKA precursor radio telescope array. As such, it provides a uniquely broad contemporaneous view of the southern skies through multiple windows of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is located at the Sutherland station of the South African Astronomical Observatory.

MeerLICHT is a South African – Netherlands - United Kingdom collaboration involving researchers from six different institutes from the respective partner countries.

The MeerLICHT consortium is a partnership between Radboud University Nijmegen, the University of Cape Town, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester and the University of Amsterdam, in association with the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), the European Research Council and the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA).

MeerLICHT inauguration 25 May 2018