♦ 1867. The National Observatory was initially created in Palacio Nacional in Mexico City.
♦ 1878. The Observatory was moved to the Chapultepec Castle and inagurated on May 5th.
♦ 1908. The Observatory was moved to Tacubaya.
♦ 1929. National Autonomous University (UNAM) was put in charge of the administration and operation of the Observatory.
♦ 1951. The Observatory station is founded in Tonantzintla, Puebla.
♦ 1961. The 1m telescope in Tonantzintla is inaugurated.
♦ 1967. The Institute of Astronomy of UNAM is created.
♦ 1971. UNAM sets up the 0.84m and 1.5m telescopes in the San Pedro Martir National Park.
♦ 1979. UNAM inaugurates the 2.1m telescope, currently one of the world's best in its class.
♦ 1983. The Institute of Astronomy develops the Mepsicron detector, the most advanced of its kind in the world as of that time, and it uses the 2.1m telescope with one of its spectrographs.
♦ 1989. UNAM together with the TEC de Monterrey are the first Mexican institutions connected to the international network (a.k.a. internet) and the OAN-SPM is connected via satellite links.
♦ 1995. The 2.1m telescope becomes the first classical telescope to possess active optics, through a set of pneumatic actuators (air bags).
♦ 2010. The robotic telescope dedicated to monitoring seeing conditions starts operations on site.
♦ 2011. The 1.5m telescope starts astronomical observations in a robotic mode.
♦ 2012. The RATIR instrument is coupled to the 1.5m telescope within the framework of collaboration with NASA.
♦ 2015. The BOOTES-5 robotic telescope is inaugurated in collaboration with the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucia in Spain and the University of Sungkyunkwan in South Korea.
♦ 2016. The 2.1m telescope became the first push-pull classical telescope, using vacuum as geleralized pull.
♦ 2016. The robotic telescope COATLI starts operations.
♦ 2017. The robotic telescope DDOTI starts operations.
♦ 2019. The robotic telescope SAINT-EX starts operations.
♦ 2020. The three robotic telescopes TAOS-II start operations.
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