22.01.2024

IAAT collaborates with UCSC

for the production of mirror actuators for CTA-MSTs

The high-energy astrophysics section of the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics Tübingen (IAAT) is a member of the team led by DESY-Zeuthen that will build the telescope mounts of the Davis Cotton-based Medium-Sized Telescopes (MSTs) for the forthcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observatory. IAAT provides its expertise for the construction and performance validation of motorized actuators that are used to align the 86 mirror facets at each of the mirror dishes. The University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) recently won a grant to contribute actuators for seven MSTs. IAAT collaborates with UCSC and will set up the quality control of these actuators, to ensure that the actuator accuracies are up to requirements.

Press release at UCSC:
https://news.ucsc.edu/2024/01/next-gen-telescope.html

More information about CTA:
https://www.cta-observatory.org/