Introduction

La Silla Engineering Departament (LED)

The La Silla Engineering Department was born at the beginning of 2002, it become as a result of a reengineering process in LSO. The old teams were adapted to the new administrative configuration. His actual Head is Gaetano Andreoni, and his Deputy is Ueli Weilenmann.

LED´s objective is to maintain, all the components, systems and subsystem related with the observations. The LED is also giving services in designing and building pieces and instruments in order to increase the LSO capability to bring quality astronomical data.

The Engineering Department is conformed by the following sections:

TELMA, (Telescope Electronic Maintenance) in charge of electronic equipment maintenance related with the three mayor Telescopes and its Instruments.

ELECTRONICS, in charge of Instruments and Telescopes upgrades, to maintain small Telescopes and to give maintenance service for computer peripheral. This group also build and designs all the necessary special electronics equipments in the Observatory.

INSTRUMENTATION, in charge of CCD and Infrared Detectors, and maintenance and upgrade of all the optical components of the Observatory.

MECHANIC. It designs, build, assemble, test and maintains all the mechanical components and they allow correct operation of the Observatory.