PoS - Proceedings of Science
Volume 444 - 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2023) - Gamma-ray Astronomy (GA)
Status and performance of the ASTRI-Horn dual mirror air-Cherenkov telescope after a major maintenance and refurbishment intervention
G. Leto*, G. Bellassai, C. Bigongiari, B. Biondo, G.E. Bruno, M. Capalbi, O. Catalano, V. Conforti, G. Contino, A. A. Compagnino, M. Corpora, S. Crestan, C. Gargano, S. Garozzo, F. Gianotti, V. Giordano, A. Grillo, S. Iovenitti, N. La Palombara, F.P. Lo Gerfo, S. Lombardi, D. Marano, E. Martinetti, A. Micciché, R. Millul, T. Mineo, D. Mollica, G. Nicotra, G. Pareschi, F. Russo, P. Sangiorgi, G. Sironi, S. Scuderi, G. Sottile and G. Tostiet al. (click to show)
Full text: pdf
Pre-published on: July 25, 2023
Published on: —
Abstract
The ASTRI-Horn telescope has been developed under the leadership of the Italian National
Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) as a prototype of a compact aplanatic dual-mirror (4 m diameter) Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope (IACT) with a large FoV (8◦). It is the pathfinder of the small-size telescopes adopted for both the ASTRI Mini-Array (Tenerife, Canary Islands) and the SST/CTA array (Paranal, Chile) to perform 1-200 TeV gamma-ray astronomy with an unprecedented combination of high angular/energy resolution and flux sensitivity across a large Field of View. ASTRI-Horn is a complete end-to-end system; since 2014 it is installed in Italy at the INAF "M.G. Fracastoro" observing station (Mt. Etna, Sicily). The telescope already successfully demonstrated, first time ever, the optical behavior of a dual-mirror Schwarzschild-Couder telescope as a Cherenkov system, and also obtained the first gamma-ray source detection, the Crab Nebula. During 2020-2022, ASTRI-Horn - which operates in a harsh environment on an active volcano - has been subject to significant maintenance and refurbishment to restore systems and improve performance. Mirrors have been substituted, adopting high-performance new-recipe coatings, and the camera electronics has been further optimized. Now the telescope is extensively used for cosmic rays, gamma rays, and muon-radiography of the Etna volcano investigations.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22323/1.444.0729
How to cite

Metadata are provided both in "article" format (very similar to INSPIRE) as this helps creating very compact bibliographies which can be beneficial to authors and readers, and in "proceeding" format which is more detailed and complete.

Open Access
Creative Commons LicenseCopyright owned by the author(s) under the term of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.