Qualla: Aristarchos 2.3 m Telescope

Aristarchos 2.3 m Telescope: Introduction

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. On 7 July 2025, astronomers at the Chelmos Observatory on Mount Chelmos in the mountains of Achaea fired a laser into space and waited. The target was the Psyche spacecraft, already millions of kilometres from Earth and travelling toward the main asteroid belt. The signal arrived. Psyche responded. The Aristarchos Telescope, the largest in Greece, became one of only two European observatories to participate in NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications demonstration — a test of laser-based communication across interplanetary distances. It was a long way from the telescope's first light test in 2005. It was also, somehow, exactly what the instrument was built for.

Image: Greece_location_map.svg: Lencer / derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Aristarchos 2.3 m Telescope: A Mountain Built for Stargazing

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Petrogel, CC BY-SA 4.0. Mount Chelmos rises to 2,355 metres in the mountains of the Peloponnese, south of the Gulf of Corinth and east of Kalavryta. The Chelmos Observatory sits near the summit, at an altitude and latitude that provide both dark skies and a high proportion of clear nights. The Aristarch...

Image: Petrogel | CC BY-SA 4.0

Aristarchos 2.3 m Telescope: Looking Outward: Exoplanets and Asteroid Families

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stelios tsikas, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Aristarchos Telescope has spent years doing the patient, accumulative work of modern astronomy. In 2014–2015 it contributed photometric follow-up observations that helped confirm two exoplanets, WASP-113b and WASP-114b — transit detections announced in 2016 that added two mor...

Image: Stelios tsikas | CC BY-SA 4.0

Aristarchos 2.3 m Telescope: Reaching Deep Space

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stelios tsikas, CC BY-SA 4.0. Since 2020, the Aristarchos Telescope has taken on a second role: a ground station for experimental communications. In August 2020 it was selected as the first ground-based station for the ESA's ScyLight program, which supports research into optical, photonic, and quantum communi...

Image: Stelios tsikas | CC BY-SA 4.0

Aristarchos 2.3 m Telescope: Named for a Forgotten Pioneer

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stelios tsikas, CC BY-SA 4.0. The telescope is named for Aristarchus of Samos, the ancient Greek astronomer who, around 270 BC, proposed that the Earth revolves around the Sun — a heliocentric model that would not become scientific consensus for another eighteen centuries. Aristarchus was largely ignored in h...

Image: Stelios tsikas | CC BY-SA 4.0