A Franco–German–Spanish organization for millimetre-wave astronomy, with its headquarters in Grenoble, France. It operates instruments in France and Spain. The IRAM 30-m Telescope was opened in 1985 at an altitude of 2870 m on Pico Veleta, in the Sierra Nevada mountains near Grenada in southern Spain. It observes at wavelengths of 3, 2, 1, and 0.9 mm. The NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) is situated on the Plateau de Bure, at an altitude of 2550 m in the French Alps 90 km south of Grenoble. When completed in 2019 it will consist of twelve 15-m antennas movable on tracks arranged in a Y-shape giving baselines up to 1600 m. The forerunner of this array was opened in 1990 under the name Plateau de Bure Interferometer with three dishes and expanded to six in 1996. IRAM is owned and operated by the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the German Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, and the Spanish Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

http://www.iram-institute.org/ Official observatory website.