Turkey’s Big Astronomy Project: Eastern Anatolia Observatory’s Large Mirror Is Now at Home

Turkey is getting ready to operate its largest observatory, the Eastern Anatolia Observatory, next year, and its telescope mirror that is 4 meters in diameter has recently arrived in the country.

A cargo plane from Russia’s Moscow carrying the mirror landed safely at the airport located in the country’s eastern Erzurum province in late November. The city will host the second-largest observatory in Europe when it will be in operation.

Following the arrival, a truck moved the mirror to a snow-covered altitude of 3,170m in the Karakaya Hills where the observatory is located. About a 13-minute video was shared regarding the journey that you can watch just below.

The aforementioned mirror was built in Italy and its optical tests were carried out in Russia. “It was sent to Russia to be coated sensitively to infrared observations,” said Cahit Yesilyaprak, who leads the Eastern Anatolia Observatory project.

The team involving the project is hoping to receive the first light from space in late 2022 through the telescope.

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Compared with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Turkish Space Agency says that the observatory will collect better-quality images. The head of the agency, Serdar Huseyin Yildirim, expressed his feelings, saying: “We are looking forward to the day when the telescope will record first light coming from space.”

Why Turkey selected Erzurum province as a location to establish its giant ground-based telescope is that the city is known to have a low humidity rate. The light-free area will also allow an astronomer to make an observation under the clear sky.

The Eastern Anatolia Observatory project

Construction of the discovery center began in 2012 that is being fully funded by the Turkish government. Yesilyaprak said previously that the observatory would open a new era of infrared observation in Turkey.

“There is not a single telescope with a mirror of this scale in the region, so it also fills a huge observational gap. All the other large observatories are around 8-12 hours away,” he underscored.

Also known as DAG, the center will be the first to explore the universe in infrared light in Turkey.

Credit: Eastern Anatolia Observatory

DAG Teleskobu 4m ayna kaplama işlemi gerçekleşmiştir… 🧿 pic.twitter.com/aN1uSkBBvy

— Doğu Anadolu Gözlemevi (DAG) (@dagtelescope) November 6, 2021