The Nordic Optical Telescope Scientific Association (1984-2020)

The Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) Scientific Association (NOTSA) was founded in 1984 to construct and operate a 2.56m Nordic telescope for observations at optical and infrared wavelengths from the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Canarias, Spain, based on an agreement signed in 1986 with the Instituto de Canarias (IAC), Spain.

This page summarises the organisation and history of NOTSA (1984-2020).

Governance

NOTSA was governed and funded by the following partners (Associates):

• Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education (Denmark)
• Suomen Akatemia (Finland)
• Háskóli Íslands (Iceland)
• Norges forskningsråd (Norway)
• Vetenskapsrådet (Sweden)

The chief governing body of NOTSA was the Council, which set overall policy and approved the annual budgets. A Scientific and Technical Committee (STC) advised the Council on scientific and technical policy.

An Observing Programmes Committee (OPC), appointed by the Council, performed peer review and ranking of the applications for observing time.

The Director had overall responsibility for the operation of NOTSA, including financial matters, external relations, and long-term planning, and organises all matters related to the operation of the NOT itself on la Palma.

A Short History of NOTSA

A project to build a Nordic Telescope was first proposed in 1980 by Profs. Bengt Strömgren and Anders Reiz, who obtained funding for a feasibility study for a 2.56m telescope from the Carlsberg foundation. A feasibility study by Torben Andersen was completed in July 1981 and discussed at the Nordic Astronomy Meetings in November 1981 and February 1982. A Nordic Optical Telescope Committee was formed in September 1982 and a revised project study was presented at the end of 1982. Funding for initial project activities, notably site testing and progress on detailed design, was provided in early 1983 by the Swedish and Danish Natural Science Research Councils.

The project became reality in December 1983, when the Nordic Council of Ministers allocated 8 MSEK to the construction, upon which the four Nordic research councils (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden) approved the remaining 21 MSEK. Thus, the Nordic Optical Telescope Scientific Association (NOTSA) was founded in January 1984, and the first Council and Director, Arne Ardeberg (Lund, NOT Director 1984-1995) were appointed (Iceland joined NOTSA later, in 1997).

Substantial work started in July 1984, when a technical project group was formed, and the main design features of the NOT were approved in early 1985. At the same time, it was decided to locate the telescope at the new observatory site on La Palma. After a number of technical and financial difficulties had been overcome, the NOT was inaugurated in 1989, and regular observations started in 1990. The initial years of operation proved the excellent basic qualities of the telescope and the site but, as pointed out by an international review panel in 1994, deficiencies in the instrumentation and insufficient staff for the operations on La Palma still prevented the telescope from reaching its full potential.

Under Vilppu Piirola (Turku, NOT Director 1995 - 2002), the budget and operations of NOTSA were thoroughly reorganised with a focus on the scientific output. An adequate scientific and technical staff on La Palma was recruited, headed by an experienced Astronomer-in-Charge, Hugo Schwarz, and an ambitious, systematic programme brought the NOT operations up to international standards. At the same time, the Associates funded a joint programme to equip the telescope with a versatile set of state-of-the-art optical and near-infrared workhorse instruments. As a result, the scientific interest in and reputation of the NOT increased steadily, as reflected in the annual lists of publications based on NOT data. A far-sighted step in this period was to join the EU-funded Infrastructure Coordination Network OPTICON, which involved the NOT - and Nordic astronomy in general - in the initiatives to promote greater synergy and coordination in European ground-based astronomy.

The NOT was thus already a well-established, successful operation when Johannes Andersen (NOT Director 2002 - 2013) and Thomas Augusteijn (Astronomer-in-Charge) were appointed. Gradual instrumentation upgrades continued (new detectors; a stable location for the high-resolution spectrograph FIES), and financial reserves also made it possible to overhaul and completely renew the telescope control and cooling systems, securing continued operation for another couple of decades. In parallel, a sustained programme was pursued to document and streamline telescope, instrument and data flow operations so as to improve the efficiency, flexibility and reliability of the operations and the short- and long-term scientific value of the data. Notable scientific results include long-term monitoring of active stars and rapid response to events in the emerging fields of Gamma-Ray Bursts and exoplanets (for more detail, see the Annual Reports and lists of publications). A programme of training activities, including an expanded Research Student programme, was also developed. At the end of September 2013 Johannes Andersen retired, and Thomas Augusteijn was appointed NOT Director (2013 - 2024).

The original concept for the NOT was an independent, general facility for observational projects by Nordic astronomers. However, the scientific and organisational context in which it operated around 2005-2015 was vastly different from that of the initial period (1990): meanwhile Finland had joined ESO (along with UK, Spain and several other countries), and a new generation of European (even global) mega-facilities at optical, infrared and radio wavelengths started to dominate the scene. Smaller telescopes, such as the NOT, had to specialise and coordinate their operations at the European level in order to remain scientifically and financially competitive.

This philosophy underlied the ASTRONET consortium, which was formed in 2005 by all the largest funding agencies for European astronomy, with EU support. Its goal was to prepare a science-based plan for the coordinated development of all of European astronomy - at all wavelengths, from the ground and in space, and including the crucial human resources. In extension of its membership in OPTICON, NOTSA played a very active role in ASTRONET and contributed significantly to the development of a new operational paradigm for the European 2-4m telescopes.

NOTSA ended to exist at the end of the decade 2010-2020. This was the final consequence of the decision of Sweden to end their partnership in NOTSA. The NOT, as an operational organisation, was restarted when the University of Aarhus (AU), Denmark, and the University of Turku (UTU), Finland, took ownership of the telescope and its operations.

Currently, NOT continues to operate with remarkable scientific output, specialising in flexible observing modes and reliable instrumentation.