Seminario DAS: Introducing the Condor Array Telescope

Speaker: Prof.  Kenneth M. Lanzetta is a professor
Department of Physics and Astronomy of Stony Brook University. 

Abstract: The Condor Array Telescope is an “array telescope” that is made up of six off-the-shelf refracting telescopes coupled with six off-the-shelf large-format CMOS camera all mounted onto a common mount. The telescope was deployed to a very dark site near Animas, New Mexico in the spring of 2021 and was commissioned and calibrated over the course of the summer and autumn of 2021. The telescope has been routine operation ever since, autonomously collecting observations every clear night.  The research objectives of the project include studying (1) the low-surface-brightness outer regions of the Milky Way and other nearby and distant galaxies, (2) transiting planets, gravitational microlensing events, and stars at a very rapid cadence, and (3) the faint and extended ejecta of explosive and massive stars.  In this seminar, Prof. Lanzetta will report the current status of the telescope and the project and will describe some of the observations that Condor has obtained over its first two years of operation.