Ground Instrumentation
Joan Oro Telescope
Robotic telescope at the Montsec Observatory
The Joan Oró Telescope (TJO) is a robotic telescope located at the Montsec Observatory (OdM), a scientific infrastructure managed by the IEEC under an agreement with the Directorate General for Research of the Generalitat de Catalunya. It is the largest telescope in Catalonia (0.8-meter in diameter). It is located inside a 6.15-meter dome and is equipped with two scientific instruments: an imaging camera with photometric filters (LAIA) and a medium resolution spectrograph (ARES). The telescope is owned by the Generalitat de Catalunya and is named after the famous Catalan biochemist and astrobiology pioneer Joan Oró i Florensa.
The TJO is a general-purpose facility and, as such, performs a variety of observations related to various scientific topics. Given its size, the TJO's main scientific niche is time-domain astronomy, where continuous, high-cadence observations are the primary requirement. It operates in a fully automated way and offers time to the astronomical community through competitive proposals reviewed by an independent Time Allocation Committee (TAC). In addition, the TJO can also act as a support facility for space missions to collect photometric and astrometric data.
THE IEEC CONTRIBUTION
Since 2007, the IEEC manages the TJO and has been in charge of its robotisation, the development of its two instruments, and its scientific exploitation. The IEEC has designed and developed the observatory control system that allows the TJO to operate in a fully robotic and unattended way, including the observation planner (ISROCS), the observation control and execution system (OpenROCS, OCS), and the quality control and results delivery process (ICAT). In addition, the IEEC staff is responsible for the maintenance of the optical and mechanical systems of the TJO to ensure that the telescope is fully operational every night of the year.