Orgov Radio-Optical Telescope
The Orgov Radio-Optical Telescope, also known as ROT54 or the Herouni Mirror Radio Telescope, is a radio telescope in Orgov, Armenia. It was built between 1975-1985 and was active between 1986-1990 before its use was halted. Subsequently, many attempts have been made to restore and restart the ROT54. It was registered as a historical and culturally significant Armenian monument in 2002 (monument N: 2.114.19.11.). Specifications. The telescope is located at the RRI Aragats Scientific Centre in Orgov, Armenia. It is on Mount Aragats, at a height of . The radio telescope has a diameter  of . It is hemispherical, and fixed to the ground, with a movable secondary mirror with a diameter of . This provides a useful diameter of . It has a surface accuracy around 70/100 μm, giving an operating wavelength of 30-3mm (10-100 GHz), and was originally designed to observe down to 1 mm (300 GHz). The optical telescope has a mirror, with a focal length. History. Development. In 1964, Paris Herouni proposed the concept of the Heruni Radio-Optical Telescope to Sergei Korolev. Korolev approved Heruni's proposal and after various delays, the construction of the telescope would began. The  development began in 1975 with the active phase of the construction taking place between 1981 and 1985. Demolitions were set on the slope of Mount Aragats to create the pit for the dish. Afterwards, concrete would be poured into the pit. 3600 shields made of high-strength alloys based on aluminum with additions of copper, magnesium and manganese, in turn attached to iron pipes, were "walled up" in the pit. Of particular technical difficulty was the polishing of the shields (with an average size of one by one meter) that covered the telescope mirror, because the reception of radio waves  in the millimeter and sub-millimeter ranges depends on the quality of the surface of the shields. Therefore, each panel of the mirror was hand-molded and precision-finished to within 70 microns. The telescope went operational on 1986 and in same year, Heruni received patent No. 1377941 with the assignment of the invention to the name “Mirror Radio Telescope Heruni”. The remaining infrastructure was completed in 1987. Operations and observations. The observatory was active between 1987 and 1990. An explosion of the red giant (the twin star of the constellation Gemini) was recorded, numerous articles were published in scientific  journals of the USSR and abroad, and reports were made at conferences. The Telescope was subjected to, but not damaged, by the 1988 Armenian earthquake. Decommission and restoration attempts. Telescope operations ceased around 1990. In the mid-1990s a plan to restore the telescope to use it for astronomy was proposed. It was subsequently restructured in 1995-2010, with new control computers, new feeds, and observations in collaboration with the Astronomical Society of Russia and the National Technical University of Athens. Future operation of the telescope, will necessitate further upgrades to the control systems, carrying out comprehensive adjustments, replacing outdated analog  sensors with digital ones, and modernizing the data processing systems. According to experts, these upgrades will cost approximately $25 million. In 2012, movement of the secondary mirror was rendered impossible due to a defective control arm. The state at the moment cannot allocate the required funds, so the entire research complex is being mothballed. With more than half of the buildings on the territory of GETSAI abandoned, the ROT 54 / 2.6 operations again ceased in 2012. In 2018/2019, a restoration project was prepared, so that the telescope can be used in the European VLBI Network. The implementation was  planned to begin in 2019.