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15-09-2016
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MeerLICHT telescope achieved first light

Submitter: Dirk Lesman
Description: The MeerLICHT telescope achieved first light here in Dwingeloo on the evening of September 13, 2016. The telescope was built by the NOVA Opt-IR group and serves as the prototype telescope for the BlackGEM Array. The image quality that was obtained during the first night was excellent! The first tests were performed with a Canon 5D camera. The 110 Mpix science CCD will be installed next week.

The telescope will be tested further in the coming weeks. In October, it will move to Radboud University in Nijmegen to be merged with its mount and electronics. After thorough characterisation and testing, it will be commissioned at Sutherland (South Africa) in the beginning of 2017. The telescope will always co-point with the MeerKAT radio array to provide optical data of the sources for which radio data has been taken.

The PI institutes of the MeerLICHT project are the University of Cape Town (Prof. Patrick Woudt) and Radboud University (Prof. Paul Groot). For more information, see http://www.ast.uct.ac.za/meerlicht
Copyright: Photo: Steven Bloemen
 
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