Iranian astronomers fear their ambitious observatory could become a 'Third World telescope'
For Sepehr Arbabi, the ceremony last week to inaugurate the Iranian National Observatory (INO) on a mountaintop in central Iran should have been a proud moment. The astrophysicist spent 13 years surmounting obstacles to help put the world-class optical telescope on a sound technical footing, including obtaining its primary mirror from Germany. “I felt this was like my baby, my child,” says Arbabi, who left the project 5 years ago and is now at the University of Würzburg.
But Arbabi and some colleagues fear that opaque project management and a shift in the nation’s political leadership pose threats to the $30 million INO—the biggest science project Iran has undertaken. “It feels like your child is drowning in front of you and you can’t help,” Arbabi says. Others say Iranian astronomers should get a chance to review changes in the telescope’s design and how it may affect scientific objectives, as well as clarify who will have access to the telescope.
Many agree the inauguration was “untimely,” as the Astronomical Society of Iran (ASI) declared in a statement. That’s because the INO has not yet installed two key pieces of the telescope: its 3.4-meter primary mirror and its adaptor-rotator, a sensor-packed component that tracks stars and sharpens images. Astronomers cannot begin the months long process of commissioning and calibrating the telescope until those elements are in place, meaning first light is unlikely to happen until 2023 at the earliest.
more at Science Magazine
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