The Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre: engineering of observatory facilities and physical infrastructure, goals, and current status

Abstract

The Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre in Spain is a new astronomical facility particularly conceived for carrying out large sky surveys with two unprecedented telescopes of unusually large fields of view: the JST/T250, a 2.55m telescope of 3deg field of view, and the JAST/T80, an 83cm telescope of 2deg field of view. The most immediate objective of the two telescopes for the next years is carrying out two unique photometric surveys of several thousands square degrees, J-PAS^[9][14][16] and J-PLUS ^[14][16], each of them with a wide range of scientific applications, like e.g. large structure cosmology and Dark Energy, galaxy evolution, supernovae, Milky Way structure, exoplanets, among many others. To do that, JST and JAST will be equipped with panoramic cameras under development within the J-PAS collaboration, JPCam and T80Cam respectively, which make use of large format (~ 10k x 10k) CCDs covering the entire focal plane. This paper describes in detail the engineering development of the overall facilities and infrastructures for the robotic observatory and a global overview of current status and future actions to perform from engineering point of view.