The Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre: goals and current status
The Observatorio Astrofsico de Javalambre in Spain is a new astronomical
facility particularly conceived for carrying out large sky surveys with
two unprecedented telescopes of unusually large elds of view: the
JST/T250, a 2.55m telescope of 3deg eld of view, and the JAST/T80, an
83cm telescope of 2deg eld 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 and J-PLUS, each of
them with a wide range of scientic 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×10k) CCDs covering the entire focal plane. This
paper describes the current status and expected schedule of the overall
project, the main characteristics of the telescopes, their cameras, the
technical requirements of the two planned surveys, as well as the
general operation strategy of the observatory.