The optical telescope featured in this issue is located in our country, on Mount Kyllini, in Corinth, and it is the Cryonerius Observatory. It was established in 1972, and recently it has started to gain attention because… it will become a space hub!
What does this mean? That investments will be made in its infrastructure and upgrades so that it can stand at a European level regarding planetary safety issues.
The Cryonerius Observatory belongs to the National Observatory of Athens.
It has a Cassegrain reflector telescope with a 1.2m mirror, and it was last upgraded in 2016 with instruments required for observing lunar impacts.
Observations made with it so far… obviously concern the Moon and statistics on what impacts its surface. (NELIOTA program, , Liakos 2024, Astronomy and Astrophysics) or other measurements on various asteroids. (Reddy, 2023)
photo: lunarkrioneri, photo credits: Liakos, 2024
And how did it become a space hub?
The Aristarchus Observatory (which also belongs to the National Observatory of Athens) had previously been used in collaboration with ESA to communicate with the “Alphasat” satellite using a special laser. This sparked the interest of the scientific community and demonstrated that in Greece we can provide the specialized personnel and necessary equipment for such research, specifically communication with satellites that we send to various distances. Alphasat is located 37,000 km away, but now the community aims for something… further away… at 300,000,000 km!
The Cryonerius Observatory received funding for the upgrade of its facilities for the space mission “PSYCHE,” which aims to explore the asteroid “16 Psyche.” Previous research on it has shown that its composition resembles that of the Earth’s core.
Photo: krioneri_photo , photo credits: ΙΑΑΔΕΤ
Along with the development of the observatory, the funding also pertains to protecting our planet from space debris and objects entering the Earth’s atmosphere, as well as the development of the surrounding area through various conferences, student visits, and more.
Here is the latest video about this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdC1tsRM5Zg
Sources
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdC1tsRM5Zg
2.¨https://www.aanda.org/component/article?access=doi&doi=10.1051/0004-6361/202449542
3. https://kryoneri.astro.noa.gr/
4.https://physicsgg.me/2024/10/19/αστεροσκοπείο-κρυονερίου-ο-μεγαλύτε/