The Staff

The group is formed by Support Astronomer (Grupo de Astrónomos de Soporte, GAS), Telescope Observers (TO) and telescope operators (Técnico de Operaciones Telescópicas, TOT), under the supervision of the head of the Telescopic Operations Group, Álex Oscoz Abad.

 

 

Support Astronomers and Post-docs (GAS)

 

Telescope Observers

 

Técnicos en Operaciones Telescópicas (TOTs)

 

 

 

The SA are in charge of:

• ensuring the regular observations at the facilities for which the IAC is responsible;
• supervising the work of the TOTs;
• giving support to the observer, either presentially or remotely;
• introducing the installations to the groups of students from visiting universities;
• maintain the documentation and manuals of the instruments and telescopes;
• software and pipeline development;
• maintenance of web-pages;
• execute the service observations allocated to the Spanish night CAT (INT, NOT, TNG);
• support the remote observations to which the IAC community has access (SARA telescopes, etc);

The TOTs have a fundamental rôle in the life at the OT observatory. In fact, they

• are the reference person at the observatory during the night;
• are in charge of both night and solar telescopes;
• are responsible of verifying the real-time status of many instruments (IAC80, TCS, SL, Quijote, …), and act to solve any sort of problems that may arise;
• are responsible to monitor the weather conditions, and decide whenever the observations have to be stopped;
• supervise the observer during their observations;
• execute part of the observations for many ongoing projects;
• help the MONS users.