Galáctica is the Centre for Astronomy, Education and Outreach located in the village of Arcos de las Salinas, Teruel. The Centre, sponsored by CEFCA, aims to foster the understanding of astronomy among the general public by providing access to professional quality facilities for environmental and culture education, scientific and outreach purposes.

The Centre is located near the Observatorio Astrofisico de Javalambre on a site notable for the excellent quality of its atmosphere and the absence of light pollution, thus providing ideal conditions for the pursuit of astronomical activities.

The project, as a whole, has been designed to help implement a number of programmes concerning the practice of astronomy and the dissemination of knowledge at all levels, from school to university, and for the benefit of amateur astronomers and the general public alike. To these ends, Galáctica provides dedicated facilities to help carry out outreach programmes, workshops, courses, student training and field work by visitors.

FACILITIES

The facilities available at Galáctica include a network of nine domes for astronomical observations, together with a dedicated control room for the operation of the telescopes and for data analysis. Three out of the nine domes house semi-professional telescopes, intended for general use: one solar telescope with an objective lens of 15 cm in diameter and two night-time telescopes with primary mirror diameters of 40 and 80 cm respectively. The remaining six domes are intended and prepared for visitors to install their own telescopes and instruments.

Additionally, the main building includes a 100-seat conference room with projection and broadcasting facilities, a temporary exhibition hall and several dedicated workspaces and meeting rooms.

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THE MUSEUM

The observational infrastructure of the centre is complemented by a large, interactive museum adapted to different levels of knowledge, both for children and adults, that offers an extensive range of content about the sky and the Universe. The content, furthermore, focuses on introducing modern-day astrophysics to the public and emphazises the significant development of astronomy in Spain. The museum extends over an area of 527 m² and consists of 61 modules with 728 different pieces including audiovisual and interactive clips. The content is divided in four distinct zones or thematic units, distributed along the length and breadth of the main building.

– The first thematic unit is dedicated to the sky; it explains the importance of sky quality for astronomical observations, highlights the effects of light pollution and describes the problematic issue of space debris.

– The second unit introduces the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre and its specialized astronomical instrumentation, unique in the world, which places the observatory at the forefront of international astronomy. It moreover describes the scientific goals of the observatory and the major technological developments it has achieved.

– The third one is called "Working in Astrophysics" and describes how research is done in modern-day astrophysics, as well as highlighting the development of the field in Spain.

– The fourth unit, The Universe, is dedicated to the Cosmos and our current knowledge about it. The content extends over every scale, from the Solar System to the large-scale structure of the Universe. It includes topics such as the Big Bang, the expansion of the Universe, our own Solar System, exoplanets, stars and their life-cycle, galaxies and their interactions... and much more.

– An additional fifth thematic unit, called "Stars of Astrophysics", can be found in the exterior zone, where the telescope domes are located. Each dome is dedicated to a female astronomer and pays homage to key discoveries made by each of them throughout the history of astronomy, advancing our knowledge of the Universe in diverse areas such as stellar physics, galaxies and cosmology.

TELESCOPES AND INSTRUMENTS

The primary nocturnal telescope of Galáctica, the GT80, is an 80 cm reflecting telescope with an f/7 focal ratio, on an altazimuthal mount and in a Ritchey-Chrétien configuration with two separate Nasmyth foci. The mount uses Direct Drive Motor technology for high-precision tracking of celestial objects, permitting long-exposure observations. The telescope is equipped with a 2048 x 2048 pixels CCD detector, with a pixel scale of 0.55"/pixel and a resulting field of view of 18.9' x 18.9'. An 8-position filter wheel completes the instrumentation, with a full set of Sloan filters (u, g, r, i, z), as well as three narrow-band filters (Hα, OIII, SII) simultaneously mounted.

The second nocturnal telescope, the GT40, is a 40 cm Schmidt-Cassegrain ACF telescope with an f/10 focal ratio and an altazimuthal mount. The telescope is equipped with an SBIG ST8 camera and an SBIG DSS-7 spectrometer covering the 400-810 nm range. With these instruments, the telescope is suitable for spectroscopic observations of deep sky objects, the study and characterization of stars and extended objects, such as galaxies and nebulae, and for redshift measurements.

The Galáctica Solar Telescope (GTS) is an apochromatic refractor telescope with a 15 cm aperture and a nominal focal ratio of f/7. The telescope is equipped with a 2048 x 2048 pixels high-resolution camera and can operate in two different observing modes. One of the modes uses a wide field of view and is capable of acquiring images of the entire solar disk, while the other mode permits more detailed observations, covering a field of view of about 1/3 of the diameter of the solar disk. Additionally, the telescope has a tunable Fabry-Pérot filter that can be centered either on the Hα or the Ca II K spectral lines, making it possible to observe detailed features of the solar chromosphere: sunspots, prominences, filaments and other magnetic field structures.

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ACTIVITIES

The Galáctica Centre for Astronomy, Education and Outreach opened its doors to the public in 2023. The centre offers guided tours of its facilities to explore all museum content, conduct astronomical observations, and participate in many other activities. Information about opening hours, available experiences, and how to make reservations can be found on the website https://galactica.org.es, where additional information can also be requested.

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This project is funded by the Fondo de Inversiones de Teruel, supported by both the Government of Spain (50%) and the Government of Aragón (50%).