Building a cutting-edge camera for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

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This colorful piece of electronics is a photomultiplier module for the CHEC camera undergoing testing. Credit: Fabricio Sousa/SLAC Key components for a new type of camera that will collect only the faintest, fastest flashes of light in the night sky are being assembled and tested now at SLAC. Their eventual destination: the first Compact High-energy Camera (CHEC), which will be installed in a prototype telescope for the Cherenkov Telescope Array. The CTA is a ground-based gamma-ray observatory currently under development by an international consortium with more than 1000 members from 27 countries. The CTA will detect ultra-high-energy gamma rays, which are beyond even the reach of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Current plans call for the observatory to comprise two separate arrays – one in the Northern Hemisphere and one in the Southern Hemisphere – totaling more than 100 telescopes of three different sizes. The telescopes are now under development. Researchers at SLAC are testing modules of electronic components for the first CHEC camera, which will be installed on a prototype telescope later this year. But most gamma rays from cosmic sources are blocked by the Earth’s atmosphere. What will the camera be looking at? Read more at: Phys.org

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