The growth-type universal optical telescope (EAST) auxiliary monitoring system jointly developed by West China Normal University, Peking University, and Shenzhen Eastern Eye Technology Co., Ltd. has recently officially started construction at the Qinghai Lenghu Astronomical Observation Base.
This system will meet the country's future layout needs for large scientific installations and strive to build an advanced site environmental monitoring system with independent controllability, all-weather operation and high-altitude environmental adaptability.Its core goal is to serve the cutting-edge site selection of my country’s astronomical facilities and the optimized deployment of scientific observation platforms.
The system will focus on key site parameter monitoring required for the future construction of large-aperture optical telescopes on the Tibetan Plateau, and will highly integrate multiple advanced subsystems such as all-weather seeing visibility monitoring, night sky light intensity measurement, and atmospheric optical turbulence profile monitoring.
The launch of the EAST auxiliary monitoring system marks my country's key progress in promoting astronomical infrastructure site selection and long-term monitoring capabilities in the extreme plateau environment.
In the future, the comprehensive monitoring system with the EAST system as the core will become a key platform to support the high-quality layout of my country's independent astronomical facilities, strengthen national observation capabilities, and serve major international scientific missions.
Li Mingzhou, President of West China Normal University, said that the launch of the project is a major step for the school to actively integrate into the national astronomy strategic layout, give full play to the advantages of astronomy disciplines, and serve the country's major scientific and technological infrastructure site selection and capacity system construction. It also marks that the school has entered a new stage in the fields of plateau astronomical observation, engineering technology support and cutting-edge data analysis.
