CTA

Professor Rene A. Ong, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles, specializing in research in the field of astro-particle physics and high-energy astrophysics, visited the Joint Laboratory of Optics. Professor Ong currently serves as a co-spokesman for the CTA (Cherenkov Telescope Array) consortium, in which the Joint Laboratory of Optics is also involved.

SST-1M Cherenkov telescopes installed within the Ondřejov observatory of the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences observing high-energy gamma photons have reached another technical milestone. In March 2023, the White Rabbit system was implemented, enabling accurate relative or absolute time synchronisation of both telescope systems.

Last year the European Southern Observatory (ESO) celebrated 60 years of existence, and the Czech Republic also celebrated 15 years since joining ESO. On this occasion, a conference was held in the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic on February 21, 2023, with the participation of ESO Director General Professor Xavier Barcons. The conference was organized by the 1st Vice-President of the Senate Prof. Jiří Drahoš, and the Vice-President of the Senate Committee on European Affairs Dr. Jiří Dušek.

On Wednesday, February 23, 2022, the SST-1M gamma-ray telescope started first observations from the Observatory of the Astronomical Institute CAS in Ondřejov. The telescope will detect gamma rays of very high energy originating from sources in our Galaxy or more distant locations of the Universe. The project is realized in teh international collaboration of reserachers from CAS, Palacký University in Olomouc, and teams from Switzerland, Poland, and Ukraine.