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ATLAS Canarias Expansion, Unpacked

No, not the singular small body- ATLAS the network of telescopes.

Javier Licandro, well-known in small-body/Solar System science, gave a talk last week on ATLAS Teide, the fifth and newest node of the ATLAS network of asteroid-search observatories. This ATLAS (following Hawaii/Haleakala, Hawaii/Mauna Loa, Chile, and South Africa) is in the Canarias Islands, Spain, under the auspices of the IAC (Instituto Astrofísicas Canarias). Now, his talk is publicly posted:

iactalks.iac.es/talks/view/1874
ATLAS-Teide: IAC’s robotic facility for planetary defense and transients  Oct 2

The first two ATLAS telescopes (“Asteroid-Terrestrial impact Last-Alert System”) were installed in Hawaii, where each could cover most of the northern-hemisphere sky in a single, cloudless night. Hence, two would be needed to fill out each other’s sky coverage, even assuming perfect weather (ha). These two telescopes were successful enough- and affordable enough- that the system expanded to two southern-hemisphere sites, the Chilean Andes and SAAO (South African Astronomical Observatory). Now, four telescopes could cover the entire sky (both North and South), with margin for bad weather, and at multiple longitudes (skirting the dawn/dusk limitation). However, all were under US management- funded by NASA grants, managed by the University of Hawaii.

The Europeans, meanwhile, lacking an explicit asteroid search observatory at the time, wanted to buy into the network. But by the time funds were approved, the telescope manufacturer had raised the price of the Wright-Schmidt optical assembly used in the first four installations. Instead, the fifth node uses an array of arrays. Four commercially-built telescopes (the Celestron RASA 11) could, when combined, replicate the aperture (and thus limiting magnitude) of the Wright Schmidt. To replicate its field of view, four of these arrays point in different directions. These sixteen individual optics then act as a fifth ATLAS site. Teide, in the Northern Hemisphere, is almost 180 degrees from Hawaii, a nice coincidence.

Licandro then describes the motivation, history, implementation, and first results of this new site and new design. Also note: besides asteroids, the observatory is keen at spotting supernovae. He also hints that, due to the (relatively) rapid construction and moderate cost, further expansion may be possible.

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