#hessii

Time for vacation in Namibia (/nɑːˈmɪbɪə/). See you in some weeks for a night shift with a H.E.S.S. crew!

One last H.E.S.S. video of the telescopes: awful (real) sound, but beautiful images! When they were moving in your direction to finally point at the place where you were standing, it made a little jolt in the heart :-)  

PhD student moment!

On the other side of the site, further behind the control room, stands buildings that house several auxiliary systems as well as independent scientific instruments and, in particular, the ATOM telescope.

ATOM is an automatised 75-cm optical telescope. It is a valuable scientific instrument for the H.E.S.S. experiment. It is used mainly for monitoring variable gamma-ray sources and potential H.E.S.S. targets. Besides this task, however, ATOM is also used as a transparency monitor for the atmosphere above H.E.S.S.. It measures atmospheric transmission using stars to help calibrate the Cherenkov shower image analysis.

I can’t stop making pictures of these telescopes! <3 Here is another arty one of #HESSII, with the huge CT5 and the small CT3 (left) and CT2 (right)

Aaah that was the way to survive the open day, the heat and the size of the site: biking!

Overview* of the H.E.S.S. site

The building of the control room in the forefront and CT1, CT2, CT3, CT4, and the huge CT5 as described. On the right hand side in the back is the building where stood place the inauguration ceremony. And in the front a technical hangar usually used from mounting/fixing the telescopes, it was used during the open day as a small museum where all panels next to the telescopes where shown again but in the shadow :-)

*from a dedicated crane behind the building of the control room, where anybody could go to make nice pictures!

Did you hear that? It is not real! It is a recorded sound of predators to discourage the birds to come close to the telescopes! o_O