2009 June - New planetarium and observatory complex for scholars in Kazakhstan Kazakhstan’s nongovernmental charity foundation “Bobek” established new educational center for wunderkinds in Almaty. The center includes Planetarium – Observatory complex for studying of astronomy discipline of school program. The complex equipped with latest, state of the art Zeiss’ opto-mechanical projection system model SKYMASTER ZKP 4 with professional acoustic system and completely robotized Cassegrain telescope reflector with main mirror of 600mm model ALT-AZ 600 and synchronized astrodome. It is great opportunity for scholars to get knowledge of astronomy with direct connection to universe. 2009 April - Telescope installation in Kazakhstan We have installed our latest telescope - 0.6m Alt-Az - and the customer's Ash dome in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The dome is fully integrated in the system and controlled by the telescope's TCS. 2009 March - New Almaty observatory The building for our most recent 0.6m telescope in Almaty/Kasakhstan is nearly finished. In spring we will be able to install this new Zeiss-telescope and its dome next to a Zeiss planetarium. 2009 February- School pupils observing Lulin Using dedicated observing time pupils from a school in Essen, Germany, observed Comet Lulin with MONET/North telescope in Texas. 2009 - International Year of Astronomy 2008 December - IRIS factory acceptance Factory acceptance of our new Infrared telescope IRIS by the customers from the Astronomical Institute of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum took place in our assembly hall in Augsburg. Up to the delivery of the optics in spring 2009 the mechanics of the telescope will be tested carefully. 2008 December - Sabadell telescope installed After adding a second Derotator we delivered the upgraded 0.5m telescope for the Agrupació Astronòmica de Sabadell to Northern Spain and installed and comissioned it there at Observatorio del Montsec. This totally revised telescope is our first equipped with Derotators in both Nasymth Foci allowing the quasi-parallel use of two different CCD cameras. 2008 October - MONET/South comissioning During comissioning in South Africa Dr. Frederic Hessman took a picture of the new 1.2m telescope and the southern Milky Way. 2008 October - SPIE proceedings published The proceedings of this year's SPIE conference Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation in Marseille are published now. We presented two contributions (reprints available on request): K. Bischoff et al., New Robotic Telescopes by Halfmann Teleskoptechnik and Tuparev Technologies K. Hodapp et al., The Infra-Red Imaging Survey (IRIS) system 2008 October - Large telescope for school kids After a final rehearsal took place successfully in the Ruhr valley town of Essen in Germany, now 1.2m MONET telescopes are available for school students and teachers. Almost 50% of observing time of the two identical telescopes in Texas and South Africa, which were granted by private German Krupp Foundation, is dedicated to educational purposes. We will gladly establish contacts for interested schools from Neusäß/Augsburg/Schwaben. 2008 September - Zeiss telescope on its way to Kasakhstan Our newest 0.6m telescope built for Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH, Germany, and its dome are on the way to its final site in Almaty. There huge effort is made to finish construction works on the building before winter is comming to Kasakhstan. Telescope and Planetarium are supposed to be installed next spring. 2008 September - Assembly IRIS telescope After finishing the design phase we started assembly of the 0.8m InfraRed Imaging Survey telescope (IRIS) for Astronomical Institute of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and University of Hawaii Institute of Astronomy (IfA). In contrast to the hydraulic bearing of our previous 80cm telescope, IRIS will work with a mechanical AZ bearing. The telescope will be installed at Observatorio Cerro Armazones in Chile next year. 2008 September - MONET/South in South Africa The second MONET telescope was sucessfully installed in South Africa! Now the two-hemisphere-observatory of two identical robotic 1.2m telescopes at McDonald Observatory in Texas and South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) was completed. Our new developed dedicated robotic software will allow to use the telescopes as well for scientific observations of the consortium institutes as for educational purposes of a large number of schools, primarily in Germany. 2008 September - enclosure video A video sequence shows opening and closing of our foldable enclosure during indoor tests. The strongly compressed sequence is running real-time, opening and closing need 25 seconds each with our here shown standard size of 1.7m inner height for smaller telescopes. Video: Halfmann foldable enclosure (DivX, 640x480, 3.0MB) DivX-Player: http://www.divx.com/divx/ 2008 September - An illuminating blast from the Universe’s past A new ESO press release describes incredible robotic observations made with our REM telescope. Press release: ESO 28-2008 (PDF 467kB) 2008 August - Siderostat installed in Göttingen We have installed a new Siderostat on top of the building of the Institute for Astrophysics Göttingen. This instrument is dedicated to both research and teaching. Core of the Siderostat are two plane mirros reflecting the light of sun and stars into a fixed installed vakuumm vertical telescope. An innovative moveable frame enables optimized observations regarding time of the day and season. Control and software were newly developed for this Siderostat. Press report: Göttinger Tageblatt (in German only) Photos: Institute for Astrophysics Göttingen 2008 July - MONET/South ready for shipping After all callibrations and performance tests were performed sucessfully, now 1.2m telescope MONET/South is packed for sea transportation and will start its long journey to Cape Town in South Africa soon. There it will arrive at the beginning of September and it will be installed at South African Astronomical Observatoy SAAO afterwards. 2008 June - SPIE conference in Marseille At SPIE conference Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation in Marseille we especially presented our new robotic telescopes (K. Bischoff et al., New Robotic Telescopes by Halfmann Teleskoptechnik and Tuparev Technologies). Also several other contributions addressed Halfmann telescopes in Marseille. 2008 May - factory acceptance of Zeiss telescope Our first new designed 0.6m telescope is finished and was presented to our customer Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH within the scope of the factory acceptance ceremony. Additionally we upgraded an Ash dome with automatic control and integrated it into the telescope system. Telescope and dome we will install at a new public facility in Almaty/Kasakhstan as soon as the local construction works will be finished. 2008 April - Most luminous object in the Universe The most luminous object ever observed in the Universe, a Gamma-ray burst called GRB 080319B, was observed with the Halfmann built R.E.M. telescope in La Silla, Chile. Press release: ESO 08-2008 2008 March - 0.8m IRIS telescope For the IRIS (InfraRed Imaging Survey) collaboration of the Astronomical Institute of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the University of Hawaii Institute of Astronomy (IfA) we are building a new telescope. It will be an 31in alt-azimuth-Nasmyth-system to be installed at the OCA in spring 2009. The IfA contributes the infrared-camera. For comparision: IRIS will deliver superior photometric quality and sampling than the 2MASS survey performed with an 1.3m telescope. At 20s exposure-time per frame the limiting magnitude will be improved by 1mag in 2min and even 2mag in 13min. 2008 March - DIMM seeing measurements In a new publication "High-accuracy differential image motion monitor measurements for the Thirty Meter Telescope site testing program" the TMT team presents recent results on their campaign using Halfmann telescopes. 2008 February - First light at MONET/South Second 1.2m MONET telescope was installed at our test site. After optical alignment we performed first test observations with the aligned optics. Now comprehensive tests and tuning of optics, mechanics, and the entire system will take place. 2008 January - Sabadell telescope ready for delivery After two months of intense tests in our company's observatory, hampered by a spell of bad weather, the new 0.5m telescope for spanish Agrupació Astronòmica de Sabadell is optimal aligned and tuned now - it is ready for shipment to the customer! The final installation will take place in Northern Spain. 2007 November - 0.6m telescope near completion Near to the completion of the mechanics of our newest 60cm telescope we have presented it to our customer, Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH. Furthermore, we planed the installation of the complete observatory including an Ash dome in Central Asia. The telescope will be ready soon for installation of electronics, motors, and software. 2007 October - 0.8m Infrared Telescope contract signed For a German-US project we will build a 0.8m telescope dedicated for infrared observations. This new telescope will be installed at an excellent site in Chile. 2007 September - enclosure for ESO First piece of our new standardised retractable enclosure for smaller telescope with a central height of 1.7m we deliverd to the European Southern Observatory (ESO). ESO will install it in Chile. Beyond the standard shipment we also constructed a framework for a higher mounting of the enclosure. 2007 September - Annual Scientific Meeting At this year's Annual Scientific Meeting of the Astronomische Gesellschaft in Würzburg we discussed with customers and interested parties recent developments in telescope design and manufacturing. Our telescopes (TMT-DIMMs, STELLA, MONET) and their results were presented in several contributions. 2007 July - factory acceptance of MONET/South Also the second, for a South African site destined 1.2m MONET telescope was finished and accepted by our customer University of Göttingen. Now further enhancements beyond the orignial contract will be applied to the telescope. Afterwards it will be tested in detail in our company's observing station. 2007 July - Telescope in Sabadell colours We will deliver our recent 50cm telescope in the customer's colour scheme to the Agrupació Astronòmica de Sabadell. An impression is given here: 2007 June - Halfmann telescope makes outstanding measurement Because of its very high slewing speed Halfmann built robotic REM telescope (Rapid Eye Mount) was able to measure the relativistic gamma factor and determined the expansion velocity after a stellar explosion to be 99,9997 per cent of the speed of light. The telescope is dedicated to observe Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) just seconds after their detection by special satellites. Original ESO press release Bericht bei astronews.com (german) 2007 May - 1.70m standard enclosure So far we have build our totally retractable remote steerable enclosures individually for each project. Now we also offer a standard size for smaller telescopes with a central height of 1.70m. This size we have manufactured first for the Göttingen 50cm siderostat. 2007 April- New 0.6m telescope for Zeiss We will build a 0.6m telescope for the Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH which will contain major advancements first realized in our new 0.5m telescope. The complete observatory including our telescope will be installed in central asia. 2007 April - Precision for astrophysicists In the highly reputated German design journal Kontruktionspraxis a paper "Präzision für Astro-Physiker" is published under the topic 'drive technologies' which presents the development of our telescopes and especially points out the high precision of their drives. 2007 April - Design of 50cm telescope finished After we finished the desgin phase of our new 50cm telescope we now have immediately started manufacturing the first piece of it for Spanish Association Agrupació Astronòmica de Sabadell. 2007 March - Robotic Observatory At the workshop Telescope and instrumentation robotization at Dome C Michael Weber from the Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam (AIP) reports about the three Halfmann built telescopes of the AIP. The talk STELLA-I, STELLA-II, & RoboTel: a fully robotic observatory network (PDF) is now online. 2007 March - Extension completed The extension of our factory building in Neusaess-Vogelsang near Augsburg was completed and resulted in an addtional 400 sqaure meters - now we have almost 3000 sqaure meters of floor space available. 2007 January - Excellent tracking performance In the context of his diploma thesis entitled "Die technische Performance des Hamburger Robotischen Teleskops" (The technical performance of the Hamburg Robotic Telescope) Marco Mittag has analysed in detail all aspects of this issue at the 1.2m HRT. One of the most impressing results is the outstanding tracking performance of the telescope: 24 open-loop measurements yielded a mean geometric tracking loss rate of only 0.058 ± 0.007 arcsec/min which is far below the specifications of 0.2 arcsec/min. This paper issued a good certification to the technical performance in general. 2006 November - Siderostat entering test phase After discussing last details with the astronomers from Goettingen extensive tests of hardware and software of the new Goettingen Siderostat will follow in our company's testing facility. 2006 October - 50cm telescope is taking shape Our new 50cm telescope, which is currently under design, is taking more and more shape. As the bigger telescopes it is designed for remote and robotic operations and, therefore, it will yield new opportunities for smaller observatories and the most ambitious amateurs. The first telescope of this series will be delivered to the largest astronomy association in Spain, Agrupació Astronòmica de Sabadell, and installed at a good site far away from the large cities of Catalonia. 2006 September - groundbreaking The next extension of our factory building near Augsburg was started with the groundbreaking. It should be finished largely till the end of the year. 2006 August - New paper published We contributed to the recent paper "A protocol standard for heterogeneous telescope networks" published in Astronomische Nachrichten (AN 327, 744). 2006 July - 2nd HTN Workshop in Göttingen The second Heterogeneous Telescope Networks (HTN) workshop in Göttingen (23. - 26.7.2006) is aimed at interoperability between robotic telescopes and telescope networks. We will mainly discuss our projects MONET and STELLA with their operators from Göttingen and Potsdam as well as with the worldwide community. Poster: K. Bischoff et al., MONET - two fast driven 1.2m robotic telescopes (JPG, 1.22MB) 2006 July - launch of a new 0.5m telescope With the construction of a new robotic 0.5m telescope we will extend our program. This telescope will be a perfect tool offering new observational challenges particularly for the most ambitious amateurs. 2006 May - SPIE Conference We have presented especially our 1.2m telescope at SPIE Conference Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation in Orlando, Florida: "K. Bischoff et al., MONET/North: a very fast 1.2m robotic telescope". Our products were addressed in several other contributions. 2006 May - MONET software milestone With the phase 0 sign-off we have reached an important milestone with the implementation of the new robotic software for the first 1.2m MONET telescope. Press release: Tuparev Technologies 2006 May - STELLA Inauguration The STELLA observatory with its two 1.2m telescopes at Tenerife's Observatorio del Teide was officially inaugurated on May 18th, 2006. This is the first observatory equipped with two Halfmann telescopes. Press release: Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam Webcam: live picture of the STELLA site 2006 March - MONET/North dedicated After proving its capabilities during commissioning, 1.2m telescope MONET/North was officially dedicated on March 28, 2006 to sientific use of a consortium of institutes as well as schoolar outreach. Afterwards, the first MONET Symposium ("Science and Education with MONET") took place at McDonald Observatorium in Texas. Picture gallery: Dedication at McDonald Webcam1: live picture of MONET site Webcam2: live picture of MONET/North Webcam3: live picture of McDonald Observatory 2005 December - Installation of STELLA-II The second 1.2m STELLA telescope is currently installed next to already operative STELLA-I at the Observatorio del Teide in Tenerife. 2005 December - Installation of MONET/North First of two 1.2m MONET telescopes was installed at McDonald Observatory in Texas. Currently it is tested carefully and the instrumentation is commissioned. Picture gallery: Installation of MONET/North 2005 November - factory acceptance of STELLA-II Also the second 1.2m STELLA telescope was accepted by its future users from the AIP Potsdam. 2005 October - primary mirror for STELLA-II arrived The 1.2m primary mirror M1 for the new STELLA-II telescope arrived at our company in Augsburg. Now the final assembly of the telescope can be finished soon. STELLA is a project of the Astrophysikalisches Instituts Potsdam for detailled observations of stars. Webcam: 2005 October - MONET under way MONET/North has done its first step on the way to Texas and left the observing station at our company. Afterwards it was disassembled and carefully packed and it is now under way to its final site at McDonald Observatory in Texas. MONET news: 2005-October-18 2005 August - final MONET tests Final test observations with the first MONET telescope at our site near Augsburg showed the high performance of the telescope mount. Positioning and tracking were tested carefully and very satisfactory. Now delivery can take place. MONET news: 2005-Oktober-6 Results: F. Hessman: Analysis of the Tracking Tests at Teleskoptechnik Halfmann (PDF, 9.4kB) 2005 July - new TROBAR images The TROBAR telescope of the University of Valencia - build by Halfmann Teleskoptechnik - has obtained new fascinating images of the dumbbell nebula M27, the whirlpool galaxy M51 and the ring nebula M57. Furthermore, an article (in spanish) was published in Valencia which reports about the successful work of the new telescope. 2005 July - extension of office building finished With the completion of the extension of our company building in Neusäß-Vogelsang near Augsburg we doubbled our office space. 2005 July - HTN Workshop in Exeter At the Heterogeneous Telescope Networks (HTN) workshop in Exeter, southern England, we discussed about interoperability between robotic telescopes and telescope networks. The operators of our projects MONET and STELLA from Göttingen and Potsdam have been present, too. TROBAR telescope First Light! The new 0.6m robotic telescope of the University of Valencia, Spain, was delivered and installed. First light was in late May. The name TROBAR is an acronym for Telescopio ROBótico de ARas, but also means to find in valencian. DIMM for CELT First Light! The automatic seeing monitoring system DIMM for CELT, tower, enclosure and telescope had first light in the first weeks of July. The first system for the site selecting campaign of the 30m telescope CELT project had been installed and handed over at Cerro Tololo observatory in Chile. REM First Light! The 0.6m robotic telescope REM for GRB afterglow search in the infrared was delivered and had first light. After installation at La Silla observatory, Chile, in late June the first light images with the infrared camera REMIR could be obtained. Webcam: live picture from the REM dome