It will observe hundreds of millions of galaxies to improve our understanding of the accelerating expansion of the Universe.
JPCam, installed last June at the Cassegrain focus of the 2.5m Javalambre Survey Telescope (JST250) of the Javalambre Astrophysical Observatory (OAJ), successfully achieved technical first light on the night of June 29, obtaining its first images of the sky.
The Javalambre Physics of the Accelerating Universe Astrophysical Survey (J-PAS) releases the first set of data, corresponding to a sky area of one square degree observed at the well-known Extended Groth Strip. The data release contains a catalogue of more than 60,000 astronomical objects, each of them having more than a thousand parameters, including multi-band photometry in the unique set of 56 narrow-band (14 nm width) optical filters of J-PAS.
El Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades has renewed the status of unique scientific and technical infrastructure (ICTS) of the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre.
After the first light, the Pathfinder images reach 0.4” PSF resolutions in its first days of operation.
The J-PAS Pathfinder camera of the Javalambre Survey Telescope (JST250) received its first light on the night of 20th February, obtaining succesfully an image of the open cluster NGC1960. After the commissioning of the instrument, the Unique Scientific and Technical Infrastructure (ICTS, in their Spanish initials) Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre is working at full capacity, operating routinely the two main telescopes with first-level scientific instrumentation.
The certification process of the "Territorio Gúdar Javalambre" as Starlight Destination and Reserve has just successfully finished.
The XIII Scientific Meeting of the Javalambre Physics of the Accelerating Universe Astrophysical Survey (J-PAS) will be held in Teruel, in the headquarters of the Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (CEFCA) between the 5th and 9th September. This meeting, which is part of a series of meetings usually celebrated twice a year, expects the attendance of about 70 professional astronomers both from Spain and foreigners.
After passing the verification tests, the cryogenic camera is being prepared to be delivered at CEFCA next August.
The aluminizing vacuum chamber and the cleaning unit for the maintenance of JST250 and JAST80 telescope's mirrors arrived yesterday at the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre (OAJ). The chamber has been designed by CEFCA and Vacuum Technology Associates Inc, DYNAVAC (Boston, United States), responsible for its manufacture.

Optical fine tuning of the system during Final Acceptance tests provides images of 0.15” FWHM using “lucky imaging” techniques

CEFCA has proceeded with the final acceptance of the JST250 telescope installed at the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre after carrying out additional tests with the verification camera in order to test proper operation of the telescope.

The OAJ already keeps the actuator system of JPCam in its clean room. After its arrival in mid January, the engineering team has carried out the integration of the system at the observatory in order to start with the verification and fine-tune processes, first in the clean room and, finally, in the JST250 telescope.

Achieved images of 0.33” PSF with “lucky imaging” techniques

Last September 2015, the JST250 telescope at the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre passed successfully the Provisional Acceptance test review. This milestone represents a big step forward for the completion of the project, only pending the Final Acceptance tests that shall be completed in the next weeks.

In late September, responsible members of CEFCA and the J-PAS collaboration visited e2v headquarters to see, first hand, the progress made on the set up of the cryogenic camera of JPCam, the scientific instrument designed by CEFCA and Brazil for the JST250 telescope.
During the last months has been carried out the installation process of the main storage and processing systems for the UPAD/T250. The infrastructure has been provided and installed by the companies Bull España S.A. and Fujitsu Technologies Solutions S.A. These systems increase the already existing capabilities of the UPAD/T80 in order to deal with the huge amount of data produced by JPCam once the camera is installed at JST250 telescope.
With the successful achievement of this important milestone, e2v has demonstrated that the focal plane is well within the very strict JPCam requirements. The JPCam engineering focal plane has been successfully integrated at e2v (Chelmsford, UK). JPCam, the main scientific instrument of the JST250 telescope, is a 1.2 Gpixel camera designed to perform the J-PAS survey.
With the declaration of the OAJ (CEFCA's observatory) as ICTS, the center has received a recognition for its scientific, tecnological and innovative competitiveness and quality in the Spanish R&D system.
In September 25th, at 22:57h Local Time, the Javalambre Survey Telescope (JST250) achieved engineering first light. This is a very important milestone in the project since it is the first time that photons from the Universe, in this case coming from the Polaris star, have gone through the complete optical system of the telescope as it was designed.
JST / T250 telescope of the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre (OAJ) was completely integrated on September 2, 2014. The integration of the telescope with the final optical elements was made after a previous test phase in which the mechanical and control parts of the telescope were verified with dummies instead of the real optical elements.
The assembly of the main telescope of the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre (OAJ) is one of the most important milestones of the project. The first structural pieces of the JST / T250 arrived last month, and now they have begun to settle in the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre.
The dome of the building that will contain the JST / T250 telescope of the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre has been installed this week. This operation was done once the performance and sealing tests were successfully conducted.
The JST250 telescope has passed the first test of general operation that was conducted this week at the headquarters of the Belgian company AMOS, responsible for the construction of the telescope. This is the first phase for the preliminary acceptance of the telescope.
The Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (CEFCA) will receive 6.5 million euros from Fondo de Inversiones de Teruel (FITE). This fund was signed by the Gobierno de Aragón and Gobierno de España on November 30, 2012.
The Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (CEFCA) has installed the computer equipment for the robotic control of the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre (OAJ) and the storage and processing of the first data that will be provided by the telescopes of the OAJ.
Last week, CEFCA engineers moved to the Belgian company AMOS headquarters to discuss the final details of the final version of the control software of the telescope JST / T250. After the meetings, in which members of AMOS and of OSL company have participated, CEFCA engineers have given approval for the finalization of the software, which will be delivered to CEFCA in a few weeks.
This week, the Institute of Astronomy , Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Sao Paulo and the Spanish company NTE-Sener signed the contract of the support structure and the actuator system of the JPCam.
In early December, and after an international process of peer review, Brazil’s Observatório Nacional, a partner institution in the Javalambre Physics of the Accelerated Universe Astrophysical Survey collaboration (J-PAS), and British company E2V signed a contract to provide the cryogenic camera system for the JST250 telescope of the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre.
Towards the end of October, AMOS, the Belgian company responsible for the construction of the telescopes for the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre (OAJ), started the manufacturing of the main mechanical parts of the JST250. The construction of the telescope, to be installed at the OAJ by mid 2012, is currently on schedule and its main structure is expected to be erected at the Belgian plant by January.
The Final Design Review of the JST250, the main telescope which will be instaled at the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre, has been held at the new headquarters of the CEFCA during March 3rd and 4th. thickness of 250 mm. The inner hole, necessary for the light beam reaching the Cassegrain focus after being reflected in the secondary mirror, has a diameter of nearly 1010 mm.
In December 15th, CEFCA personnel visited AMOS headquarters in Liege (Belgium) to attend the Design Review meeting of the Javalambre JAST80 telescope. During this visit they had the opportunity to see in situ, at AMOS shops, the progress in the grinding and polishing processes of the two primary mirrors of the OAJ telescopes.
The M1 blank has been manufactured by the german company SCHOTT AG. It is made of ZERODUR, a glass ceramic with nearly null thermal expansion, commonly used for telescope mirrors and other engineering projects which require of using high accuracy not deformable surfaces. It weights 2366 kg and has an outer diameter of 2640 mm.
JST250, the largest telescope at the Observatorio Astrofísico deJavalambre, successfully passed the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) on October 27th 2010. The Final Design Review is expected to take place at the beginning of March 2011.
The Pico del Buitre's geotechnical study has determined that the project area is located on a rock mass of middle Jurassic age - Upper Jurassic. All excavation may be made by conventional mechanical means using hammer from time to time.