| Description: | August 31st 2024 marked the end of LOFAR1 production operations. Since December 1st 2012, LOFAR has been a very productive and innovative Observatory. More than 12 years of operations enabled the LOFAR team to make great progress in operating and handling the data of this unique facility. The plots above show the completion level and efficiency of the past several cycles, along with the number and scientific domain of LOFAR papers published since the start of LOFAR operations. We are all very proud of what we have achieved. We completed 21 cycles by performing more than 65.000 hours of successful observations and distributing more than 60 PBs of data to an ever-growing community of users, who have also contributed significantly to shaping and improving the instrument. The observing efficiency has seen a significant growth since the very early cycles, reaching and exceeding in several semesters 70%. All this while our massive array was growing both in size and in terms of capabilities. Of course, we have experienced a few bumps on the road (and this without any doubt made our journey quite memorable!), but the hard work of everyone paid off and turned LOFAR into a very scientifically productive facility. More than 750 LOFAR papers have been published so far and this is growing at a rate of 2 papers per week, which places LOFAR in the top 10% of all astronomical facilities.
While an important chapter of production LOFAR operations has closed, a new one will open soon. The upgrade to LOFAR2.0 is progressing at full speed and will return a system with even greater capabilities. The experience and lessons learned while operating LOFAR so far are an incredible resource that will shape the operations of LOFAR2.0.
|
