DAG - Eastern Anatolia Observatory - The Enclosure

Site: Erzurum - Turkey
State: under construction since September 2015
Activities:
Detail Design, Manufacturing, Pre-Assembly in Europe, Packing &Transport, Erection on Site, Commissioning and Testing activities

Date: 2015-2019

Client: Atatürk University of Astrophysics Research Telescope - ATASAM

Category: astronomy

Credits: EIE GROUP

The Enclosure

Overview:

DAG (Dogu Anadolu Gözlemevi, Eastern Anatolia Observatory) is a project fully funded by Turkish Ministry of Development and the Atatürk University of Astrophysics Research Telescope - ATASAM.

DAG will be a 4m class optical and infrared telescope and will be installed at an altitude of 3170m asl on the Erzurum Plateau, near the town of Erzurum, Eastern Anatolia, Turkey.
EIE, which was already designing and building the DAG telescope, will now be designing the Enclosure housing the telescope as well. (Link to the news HERE eie.it/en/news/notizia4)

DAG will be provided with a 4m diameter primary mirror, a 0.76m secondary mirror and a tertiary one
which will feed the telescope two Nasmyh foci.
The telescope will be provided with a system of active optics which will guarantee high image quality thanks to corrections to the deformations of the primary mirror, which will be very thin and cannot be fully rigid.
The DAG telescope will also be equipped with an adaptive optics system which will maintain the mirrors in the correct position during observation activities.

The main characteristics of the DAG Enclosure:

The Rotating Building housing the DAG telescope will have an octagonal shape and it has been designed to protect the telescope against adverse weather conditions, dust and lightnings, still preserving its thermal environment when in closed configuration. For this reason, both roof and facades have been covered with thermal insulating panels and external aluminum sheets.
The fixed base of the enclosure supports the rotating steel dome. Two slit doors allow the telescope a free field of view, while a wind shield, the windscreen, made by air flow permeable panels, can be vertically deployed, following the telescope movements and protecting it from strong winds and dust. In addition, along the enclosure perimeter there will be three ventilation doors which will be provided with fixed flaps consenting air to flow off the enclosure.

The enclosure housing the DAG telescope will also be provided with the following main mechanisms and systems:

• Locking pins;
• Thermal control system;
• Plant installations;
• Lighting System;
• HVAC System;
• Smoke detection and fire alarm systems;
• Anti-seismic Systems ;
• Control System.

Science with the DAG:

The DAG telescope will be equipped with a series of instruments which will offer a variety of observing modes, covering the optical and the infrared wavelength ranges spanning from broad band imaging to high resolution spectroscopy.

The following observations are possible with DAG:

• Observing high redshift galaxies;
• Stars formation;
• Solar System minor bodies studies;
• Galaxy studies;
• Cosmology studies;
• Planets studies.

Link to the DAG web page:

http://atasam.atauni.edu.tr/