The SST-1M captured first light at the Ondřejov Observatory

[ Joint Laboratory of Optics, 28. February 2022 ]

On Wednesday, February 23, 2022, the SST-1M gamma-ray telescope started first observations from the Observatory of the Astronomical Institute CAS in Ondřejov. The telescope will detect gamma rays of very high energy originating from sources in our Galaxy or more distant locations of the Universe. The project is realized in teh international collaboration of reserachers from CAS, Palacký University in Olomouc, and teams from Switzerland, Poland, and Ukraine.

During the fine-tuning of mechanical systems of the telescope and the camera the telescope obtained the first data from several sources in the sky including events coming from the Crab nebula. Recorded data include not only full sprays of secondary cosmic radiation caused by the interaction of the primary particle in the atmosphere but also individual particles in the spray such as the muons imaged in the form of “muon circles” on the camera. Muons are created almost exclusively in sprays initiated by protons or other hadrons.

Since 2021, two SST-1M Cherenkov telescopes are being built at the Ondřejov observatory that have originally been developed as small telescopes for the Cherenkov Telescope Array observatory. The prototypes were initially constructed in Krakow, Poland, where they gathered data as individual units and later they have been moved to Ondřejov.

[ Read the whole article at Joint Laboratory of Optics site … ]