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
The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded $3.9 million to researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz to lead the development of a next-generation telescope alignment system for the Medium-Sized Telescopes.
From 8-10 November 2022, a panel of CTAO and external experts conducted the Critical Design and Manufacturing Review (CDMR) of the Medium-Sized Telescope (MST) structure in Berlin (Germany). The panel were impressed by the dedication and work of the MST team, and did not find any obstacles that would prevent the MST structure for passing the review. As agreed with the MST team, a few high-priority action items will be addressed, after which the CDMR will be considered officially passed.
On 20 September, nearly 60 representatives from the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) Project and the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO), as well as from the broader Spanish astronomical community, participated in a conference called “CTA Spanish Day” to share and analyze the latest project news and advances from the different Spanish groups.
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 Thursday, 31 August, 2017, a prototype telescope proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the SST-1M, recorded its first events while undergoing testing at the Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ-PAN) in Krakow, Poland. The SST-1M is proposed as one of CTA’s Small-Sized Telescopes (SSTs), which will cover the high end of CTA’s energy range, between about 1 and 300 TeV (tera-electronvolts).
Representatives of CTA Consortium institutes from France, Germany and Spain met in Saclay (France) in December 2016 to lay the foundations for an international sub-consortium that aims to deliver to CTAO one fully-equipped and functional Medium-Sized Telescope (MST) with a NectarCAM camera for the pre-production phase of CTA. The sub-consortium, named MSTN, proposes to install this telescope on CTA’s northern hemisphere site at Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos in La Palma.