Work on evening activities the T80 telescope

The telescope T80/JAST (Javalambre Auxiliary Survey Telescope) Javalambre Astrophysical Observatory (OLA), built by the Belgian company AMOS, began last Thursday trip to the Vulture Peak transfer after having completed the first test operation at the factory. His arrival at the Observatory is scheduled throughout Monday afternoon and is expected to mechanical assembly tasks at the top end at the end of the week. The launch of the first professional telescope in Javalambre marks an important milestone of the project and the beginning of the evening activities of the observatory.

After the arrival of T80(Bamberg, Germany) to the OLA, and in the coming days, experts from the German company responsible for making the telescope structure, ASTELCO Systems GmbH, assisted by members of the Center for Physics of the Cosmos of Aragon (CEFCA) carry out the assembly of the mechanical structure. The optical elements, ie, primary and secondary mirrors and corrector field, the direct responsibility of AMOS will arrive shortly thereafter to be integrated into the structure during the month of May and proceed to the opto-mechanical alignment and tuning the telescope.

The start of this last phase involves testing or commissioning into operation all the machinery of OLA and implies the beginning of the night during which comments will be tested control systems, calibration and data transmission.

The development of the telescope will be an important process for several months because of the complex mechanisms of motion and control necessary for scientific observations, in which the telescope, weighing two tons and a half, should be moved with a precision of a few microns.

The first look at the sky

First Light chamber technique (the name given to the first deposits of starlight that are made with the telescope), First Light Camera (FLCam), designed and manufactured in part by members of CEFCA, is now at the Center for Studies Physics of the Cosmos of Aragon to be installed temporarily and carry out the tasks of setting up the equipment that will be dome and telescope. FLCam serve to make the first verification tests until the arrival of the final implementation later this year, T80Cam, which is currently under construction.

Using the camera plays a role check to verify the proper functioning of the various parts of the T80 and all the settings before integrating scientific instruments.

During this phase the work of engineers and astrophysicists CEFCA consist of characterizing the behavior of the entire infrastructure and 'put under' all systems that shape: the pointing of the telescope mirrors, actuators, sensors, monitoring, control systems, etc.