Greenland Telescope achieves “first light”
Using an artificial light source on South Mountain at the Thule Air Base, Greenland, the Greenland Telescope has proved its operational effectiveness and achieved a significant milestone toward being an operational telescope.
The optical telescope, attached to the telescope’s 12-meter radio dish, with its focus set just shy of infinity, captured the lights on South Mountain. This is a significant milestone and step toward an operating telescope!
The telescope’s science team will spend the coming weeks fine-tuning and pointing the telescope at known astronomical sources to help calibrate the instrument. They plan to participate with other telescopes in a springtime Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) -observation campaign. The Greenland Telescope is also set to observe as part of the Event Horizon Telescope campaign in April. Event Horizon is a project to create a large telescope array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes and combining data from several very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) stations around the Earth. The aim is to observe the immediate environment of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole.
Originally a North America Prototype Antenna for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, assembly of the telescope was completed in July 2017. OPP’s Arctic Research Support & Logistics program has provided guidance and planning support to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) throughout the effort to install the telescope in Greenland. The Greenland Telescope project is a joint effort between SAO and ASIAA in Taiwan.
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