Observer Access to the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Understand

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), a ground-based facility for very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray astronomy, will operate as an open observatory, serving a wide scientific community to explore and to study the non-thermal universe.

• Open community access is a novelty in this domain, putting a challenge on the implementation of services that make VHE gamma-ray astronomy as accessible as any other waveband.
• We present here the design of the CTA Observer Access system that comprises support of scientific users, dissemination of data and software, tools for scientific analysis, and the system to submit observing proposals.
• We outline the scientific user workflows and provide the status of the current developments.