National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

NAOJ was established on 1 July 1988 by combining the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory, the International Latitude Observatory at Mizusawa and part of Nagoya University’s Research Institute of Atmospherics. The Tokyo observatory had been established at Azabu in 1888 and moved to Mitaka in 1924; Mizusawa’s institutional history reached back to 1899.

In 2004 NAOJ joined the National Institutes of Natural Sciences. Its network connected work already underway with later large facilities: millimeter-wave observing at Nobeyama began before the merger, Subaru obtained first light in 1999, and ALMA began early scientific observations in 2011. The institutional chronology follows these projects across different stages of organization and construction.

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Mitaka houses the headquarters, but NAOJ is not confined to that campus. Its domestic facilities include sites at Mizusawa, Nobeyama, Okayama and Ishigakijima. Its overseas network includes facilities associated with the Subaru Telescope in Hawai‘i and with ALMA and other observing activities in Chile. These locations have different instruments and scientific roles.

In Hawai‘i the network includes Subaru on Maunakea and a support base at Hilo. In Chile it includes an office in Santiago, ALMA support facilities near San Pedro de Atacama and the array site on the Chajnantor Plateau. Separating high-altitude observing sites from support bases provides an operational structure for instruments and personnel working in demanding environments.

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NAOJ’s inter-university role allows researchers in universities to participate in observations and major instrumentation projects. Its thirtieth-anniversary account discusses Subaru and ALMA as examples of cooperation among observatories, universities and international partners. Construction, the start of observations and later instrument upgrades belong to separate stages of those projects.

The 2018 institutional review also describes collaboration with partners including the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science and NASA on Hinode, Kaguya, HALCA and CLASP. It discusses astronomical simulation at Mizusawa as well. Ground observations, space instrumentation and computation thus provide connected areas of work, with major development projects also offering training opportunities for graduate students.

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The Advanced Technology Center develops instruments and technologies for both ground-based and space astronomy. Its work includes design, manufacture, testing and system integration. Founded in 1993 to support focal-plane and adaptive-optics instruments for Subaru, it later contributed to the solar optical telescope on Hinode. Reorganization in 2005 also brought in staff from ALMA receiver development.

Its facilities include clean rooms for receiver components and space instruments, space-test chambers, optical measurement equipment, coating systems and precision machinery. Scientific requirements are carried through design, fabrication and testing into observing systems. This makes instrumentation a continuing research activity as well as a prerequisite for collecting astronomical data.

References: [4]