General information
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Hosting OrganisationCentro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón
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AdressPlaza San Juan, 1, Planta 2, 44001 Teruel
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Contact Info:
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Phone
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Emailcefca@cefca.es
Description
The Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (CEFCA) is a foundation of public interest of the Government of Aragón that was created in 2008 (i) to define and construct the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre (OAJ), (ii) to implement the data center “Unidad de Procesado y Archivo de Datos” (UPAD), with capacity to provide raw, reduced and calibrated data to the whole scientific community, and (iii) to carry out and promote the scientific exploitation of the data produced by OAJ and UPAD. The main scientific topics of CEFCA focus on Galaxy Formation and Evolution and Cosmology.
Main equipment or Facilities
- The Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre (OAJ), managed and operated by CEFCA.
- Unit for Processing and Data Archiving (UPAD): this data center has been designed to process and archive all the images collected by the OAJ telescopes. With capacity for 5.1 PB of storage and a total of more than 20 nodes with more that 500 cores, the UPAD provides the hardware infrastructure needed to provide raw, reduced and calibrated data on a quasi-real time basis and keep data backup.
- External Data Access Machine (EDAM): this is a system with 2 web servers (16 cores, 128 GB RAM, 28 TB storage, each server) and 2 database servers (12 cores, 256 GB RAM, 16TB storage, each server), to allow efficient access to the scientific database and sky images for the astronomical community and the general public.
- Scientific High Performance Computing system: this is a computing cluster made of 20 nodes summing up to 540 cores and more than 200TB of storage, available for scientific analysis carried out by researches at CEFCA.
- GALÁCTICA: this is a visitor center for the outreach and promotion of Astrophysics, conceived to host and operate up to nine telescopes and their domes. Three of them (of 80cm, 40cm and a solar telescope of 15cm with professional instrumentation) will be devoted to activities for the general public, schools, universities, amateur astronomy and research centers. The other six domes will be used for the hosting of external telescopes.
Projects under Development
- CEFCA is developing several technological projects directly related with the operation of the OAJ, such as the panoramic camera JPCam, the OAJ Global Observatory Control System, the JPCam@JST250 image quality control system, the OAJ events and alarms system, among other
- As part of the UPAD, CEFCA is developing specific T80Cam and JPCam data pipelines, data analysis, calibration and verification tools, value added catalogues and data access tools (VO compatible), among others. In addition, the required hardware and software to allow for external data storage at the UPAD’s facilities is under development.
- CEFCA is in charge of the developments in GALÁCTICA: domes and telescopes, communication and network facilities, control room and control hardware and software for the operation of the telescopes and domes. Outreach exhibition material is under CEFCA responsibility as well.
- CEFCA is part of the ARRAKIHS space mission consortium and is leading the developments associated with the mission data pipelines, the mission on-ground demonstrator and several scientific work packages.
- CEFCA is involved in the development of the Baby-IAXO (an intermediate experimental stage before International Axion Observatory - IAXO).
Technology Capabilities
CEFCA has expertise in several areas of technological development for astronomical telescopes and instrumentation: 1) Control (hardware and software), mechanics, electronics and optics; 2) Project management; 3) Assembly, integration and verification of ground-based instrumentation; 4) Software development, astronomical data processing and archiving, VO standards and services, user-friendly tools.
Summary of Research Services
Access to OAJ telescopes and instrumentation. Access to raw, reduced and calibrated sky images and scientific databases to the astronomical community and general public. CEFCA has signed several collaboration agreements with national and international research institutions and consortia. External data storage service is under development.