[SME-A] UK astronomy at the La Palma observatory

UK astronomy at the La Palma observatory: a new generation of facilities and instruments

Organiser(s):

Chris Copperwheat, Sarah Casewell, Boris Gaensicke, Michael Healy, Stuart Littlefair, Meg Schwamb

Session type:

Regular

Description:

The UK has had a presence in the Canary Islands since the early 1980s, and over that period the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos on La Palma has grown to become the most important Northern hemisphere site for European ground based optical/infrared astronomy. Large UK owned facilities such as the William Herschel Telescope, the Isaac Newton Telescope and the Liverpool Telescope are now accompanied by an array of smaller, UK led projects such as SuperWASP and GOTO, and the UK community also exploits many of the other major facilities at the observatory via transnational access programmes and visiting instrumentation. The recent success of the HiPERCAM quintuple beam imager on the Spanish 10.4m GranTeCan is just one example of how UK interests stretch across the observatory.

Over the next few years the capabilities of the UK facilities are changing significantly, providing exciting new opportunities to observers. The WEAVE instrument is currently being commissioned on the WHT. This powerful next-generation multi-fibre spectrograph will use 70% of the available time on the WHT over the next five years and will conduct eight major surveys covering studies of stellar evolution, Milky Way science, galaxy evolution and cosmology. Also currently under construction is the HARPS-3 instrument: the latest evolution of the hugely successful line of high resolution spectrographs which have had a huge impact in the field of radial velocity measurements of extrasolar planets. This will be commissioned on the INT to conduct a 10-year search for Earth sized planets around Sun-like stars, with 50% of the telescope time available for other PI-led science. The Liverpool Telescope will commission new instrumentation this year which will include an upgraded infrared imaging capability for the telescope, and 2026 will see first light for the New Robotic Telescope. This UK-led project is a 4-metre fully robotic successor to the Liverpool Telescope, with a science case focused on a rapid response to transient phenomena. Looking further ahead, UK institutions are participating in the construction of the Cherenkov Telescope Array and the European Solar Telescope: major international projects which will have a transformative impact on their fields. The purpose of this session is to bring together the development teams behind the new generation of instruments and facilities on La Palma with the observers who will exploit them in the decade to come. There will be a mix of technical and science talks. Telescope and instrument teams will be invited to present project updates and advertise the capabilities and observing modes which will be offered to the community. Science talks will be welcomed from current users of telescopes, as well as science discussions of programmes which will be enabled by the new instrumentation. We will also aim to identify synergies between the various UK facilities, capability gaps which could inspire future development, and opportunities for UK observers to better exploit transnational access programmes.

Topic:

Facilities