Observations with TJO postponed

On March 22, the main CCD camera of the MEIA instrument (currently the only instrument at TJO) stopped working. Several attempts were performed to recover the communication with the CCD without success. Therefore, the CCD was sent to USA for reparation some days ago.

Since the time required to repair the damaged CCD is of several weeks, we have decided to advance the planned stop of TJO observations (scheduled by next September) to realuminize the primary mirror.

After over half a year of continuous observations, this represents the major (and almost the only) unexpected drawback on the remote operations of TJO. Since the beginning of September the TJO has executed eight proposals, with almost 6000 science exposures taken, and 138 hours of observation (excluding calibrations).

This stop, even undesirable, is expected to have a mild effect on the overall performance of TJO, since the targets of only a couple of proposals were partially observable. The number of observable targets is expected to increase during the following months for all the proposals.

The TJO is expected to recover its routine operations by mid July. The OAdM staff seriously regrets this unexpected stop and apologizes for the inconveniences.