Dušan Mandát elected ESO STC member

The Council of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) elected Dušan Mandát the member of the Scientific Technical Committee of ESO (STC). STC is the main advisory body of the Council and the Director General on scientific and technical matters. STC is composed of representatives of ESO member states and Dušan Mandát will replace at this position Dr. Pavel Jáchym from the Astronomical Institute AS CR that served in this role for two previous terms. 

Dušan Mandát has been elected to this important position mainly due to his expertise in building and construction of ultra-high energy cosmic radiation observatories such as the Pierre Auger Observatory or the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). The southern part of the CTA observatory will be located only ten kilometers southeast of the current ESO observatory at Paranal in Atacama desert, Chile.

The Joint Laboratory of Optics of PU and FZU AS CR is involved in building and operation of the two observatories mentioned above and it also contributes to several other significant projects in the area of detection of cosmic radiation.