The Test Cryostat for the pre-optics of HARMONI, the optical and infrared spectrograph to be installed on the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) at Cerro Armazones (Chile), designed, manufactures, assembled and tested by AWGE Technologies was dispatch and successfully passed every vacuum and cryo test in the facilities of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC).
The Cryostat will now contain the optical, mechanical, electron, and control instruments including cryogenic mechanisms and optomechanical assemblies to be tested prior to the start of the building of the instrument for this telescope of 39 metres in diameter, the largest project in optical and infrared astronomy of the European Southern Observatory (ESO).