On 2 July, a major contract, worth several million Euros, was signed between the CTAO’s hosting partner, ESO (European Southern Observatory), and a consortium of Chilean companies for the construction of roads and telescope foundations for the CTAO’s southern hemisphere array (CTAO-South), which is located near ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. The contract, signed on … Continued
In January, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) publicly raised the alarm about the threat that the industrial megaproject INNA posed to the world’s darkest and clearest skies for astronomy, those of ESO’s Paranal Observatory and the site of the CTAO’s southern hemisphere array (CTAO-South). The project — by AES Andes, a subsidiary of the U.S. … Continued
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
On 6 September 2023, the CTAO’s two governing bodies, the Board of Governmental Representatives (BGR) and the CTAO gGmbH Council, gathered to agree on the significant forthcoming measures to advance the Observatory to its construction phase. During the meeting, both bodies unanimously certified their commitment to the progress of the CTAO, including a foreseen endorsement of up to approximately 30 million euro for 2024. This represents a significant increase in annual funding, which will enable the Observatory to not only move forward with substantial infrastructure development but also to double its workforce.
On February 15, the SST underwent the Product Review, which examined the implementation of actions towards the industrialization of the telescope and the optimization of the maintenance activities.
The CTAO released the final layouts that define the geographical position of the elements (telescopes, calibration systems and atmospheric characterization devices) that will compose the two CTAO arrays according to the approved Alpha Configuration. The particular configuration is the result of a thorough optimization process meant to maximize the scientific performance of the two CTAO arrays.
On the evening of the 25 March, the Barcelona Raman LIDAR Pathfinder installed on the CTA-North site at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma (Spain) achieved first light.
The latest news from the project office…
CTA is a large science infrastructure with many individual units and a high degree of complexity. There are many good reasons to design and implement the simplest and most harmonized system possible. One prominent area concerns the Small-Sized Telescope (SST) where harmonization is of very high importance due to the large number of units to be built, operated and maintained.
On 1 July 2019, Volker Heinz joined the CTAO as the CTA-South Site Manager. As a member of the CTA construction project, and later CTA operations, based in Chile, Volker has a key role in building up the CTA-South site team and leading and coordinating the on-site construction and operation of the observatory.