Between 27 and 29 May, the CTAO ERIC Council held its first in-person meeting of the year on the island of La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain), home to the CTAO northern hemisphere array, or CTAO-North. The Council is the governing body of the CTAO ERIC and includes delegates from Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the … Continued
During the week of 4 May, the CTAO Central Organisation co-hosted, along with the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), the University of Bologna, and the Galileo National Telescope, the International Scientific Committee of the Canary Islands Observatories (CCI, in Spanish) at the home of the CTAO Headquarters in Bologna, Italy. With its northern hemisphere … Continued
(Versión en español abajo) On Saturday, 16 May 2026, at 11:00 am, the Teatro Chico (C. Díaz Pimienta 1, Santa Cruz de La Palma) will host the sixth edition of “Women of CTAO,” an outreach event that focuses on the women who are making possible one of the most ambitious scientific projects on the planet: … Continued
The Pathfinder Barcelona Raman LIDAR (pBRL), developed as a prototype system for atmospheric monitoring at the CTAO, has completed its performance evaluation phase. Its design and capabilities have now been thoroughly assessed and published in two comprehensive papers in the Remote Sensing journal. The evaluation confirmed strong overall performance, with just a few aspects to … Continued
The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), hosting partner of the CTAO, celebrated its 40th anniversary on 24 July 2025. The occasion marks four decades since the official inauguration of its headquarters and its two observatories: the Teide Observatory in Tenerife and the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma, Canary Islands— the latter … Continued
La Palma, Spain — The international CTAO LST Collaboration released remarkable findings from observations of GRB 221009A—the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever recorded. The results were published on 23 July by the renowned journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters (ApJ Letters). The publication presents in-depth observations conducted in 2022 with the Large-Sized Telescope (LST) prototype, the … Continued
On 3 July, the CTAO LST Collaboration successfully installed the camera support structure (CSS) on the LST-2, one of the three Large-Sized Telescopes (LSTs) currently under development on the CTAO-North site in La Palma, Spain. The CSS is a composite structure comprising a carbon-fibre arch made of six tubes and a camera frame that secures … Continued
(English/Spanish) This week, CTAO Managing Director, Stuart McMuldroch, and Construction Programme Manager, Volker Heinz, traveled to the Canary Islands for a productive visit with the hosting partners at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and colleagues from the CTAO Large-Sized Telescope (LST) Collaboration. The team was warmly welcomed at the IAC Headquarters in Tenerife … Continued
On September 23, the CTAO ACADA Collaboration achieved yet another milestone when the CTAO Central Organisation officially approved and closed out the Critical Design Review (CDR) of the Array Control and Data Acquisition (ACADA) system. The approval of the CDR, an in-depth evaluation to ensure the system design meets all the requirements of the Observatory, marks a new phase in the project, moving from testing to integrating the advanced software packages that will operate the arrays.
Bologna, Italy – On Thursday, 18 April, during the closing session of the CTAO Science Symposium at Teatro Duse in Bologna, the Managing Director of the CTAO, Dr. Stuart McMuldroch, officially announced the Observatory’s new phase of growth. Supported by the 30M Euro endorsement by the CTAO’s governing bodies in September 2023, this new period … Continued