Siding Spring Observatory Director's Update

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue73 1–30 June 2026

The 2.3m telescope is finally back in service after the second round of repairs on the concrete foundations has completed. Pending surprises, this should keep the 2.3m building happily turning on its rails for another five to ten years. 

Following the AAT’s first successful Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) demonstration a year ago, the next step has been taken to characterise how effectively the AAT can be used as a DSOC ground station to support upcoming interplanetary missions.

As part of Alannah Favero’s Honours project the previous instrument was modified with help from Franics Bennet to be installed at the f/8 Cassegrain focus to measure how effectively near infrared light can be coupled into the fibre optic cable, which is a critical but previously unmeasured loss term. A high-speed camera was also used to directly image the star allowing fibre coupling efficiency to be correlated with seeing conditions at the time of observation.

Over the 10 days up at SSO weather was a challenge throughout the observing run with high humidity and a couple rainy days, but still light was successfully coupled into the fibre. This marks an important first step towards fully characterising the AATs performance for future deep space missions. Thank you to the dedicated AAT staff for helping make this new technology a relality.

Alannah Favero, Francis Bennet, and Christian Wolf

Image: Honours student Alannah Favero and Professor Francis Bennet at the AAT in June 2026.