The small size telescope projects for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Understand

The small size telescopes (SSTs), spread over an area of several square km, dominate the CTA sensitivity in the photon energy range from a few TeV to over 100 TeV, enabling for the detailed exploration of the very high energy gamma-ray sky.

• The proposed telescopes are innovative designs providing a wide field of view.
• Two of them, the ASTRI (Astrophysics con Specchi a Tecnologia Replicante Italiana) and the GCT (Gamma-ray Cherenkov Telescope) telescopes, are based on dual mirror Schwarzschild-Couder optics, with primary mirror diameters of 4 m.
• The third, SST-1M, is a Davies-Cotton design with a 4 m diameter mirror.