The first international TART workshop was held at Rhodes University from 9-13 October 2023. This workshop was sponsored by SARAO, and the local organizing committee was led by Dr Stanley Kuja. The press release from SARAO is here.

Members of the TART team were there were myself, Rikus and Ben.

TART volunteers Ben Hugo and Rukus Human along with Takalani, Tim and Oleg during assembly of the TART array at the workshop.

TART installations in SKA African Partner nations​

During the workshop it was learned that the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), who host the SKA project in South Africa, will be funding the installation of a TART telescope in many of the SKA African partner nations. These are:

• Botswana
• Ghana
• Kenya
• Madagascar
• Mauritius
• Mozambique
• Namibia
• Zambia

Delegates from each of these partner nations were present at the workshop, along with astronomers from Italy, Portugal, South Africa and further afield.

Photos​

The TART logo​

We need a logo, and are lucky enough to have a volunteer with a graphics design background to join up! After the logo comes the TART T-shirt. I'd like to make the T-Shirt an annual event.

Team Expansion​

We've had a good deal of expansion. The TART project has three teams

• Rhodes: Ben, Kenda, Rickus*, Stanley, Oleg
• SARAO: Ben, Oleg, Ruby, Nadeem
• Stellenbosch: Rikus, Danie
• New Zealand: Tim, Phill, Max, Pat

Rickus (*) gets honorary membership of the Rhodes team for driving from Stellenbosch to Rhodes to help with the installation.

The TART project has had a lot to celebrate in 2022. What follows is a brief summary of events that took place.

Team Expansion​

We've had a good deal of expansion. The TART project has three teams

• Rhodes: Sonia, Ben, Rickus*, Stanley, Oleg, Patrice
• SARAO: Ben, Oleg, Ruby, Nadeem
• Stellenbosch: Rikus, Danie
• New Zealand: Tim, Phill, Max

Rickus (*) gets honourary membership of the Rhodes team for driving from Stellenbosch to Rhodes to help with the installation.

TART-3 Updates​

The NZ team has been hard at work on TART-3. Progress is now accelerating as the radio module is now in early testing.

TART-3 Radio Module	Features
	Two radios per module, PCI-e connector, Easy to replace modules

Rhodes TART comissioning​

Gained coverage in the media thanks to excellent organizing by the Rhodes team (Sonia, Rickus (hon), Stanley, Oleg, Patrice). This telescope was a 3-arm interferometer with a new design that allows easy reconfiguration.

The Rhodes student team	Dignitaries

Establishing a new Github home​

We began the process of moving the github repositories to a new home (https://github.com/tart-telescope). This also involves breaking up the huge monolithic TART repository in to smaller and more managable repositories.

Documentation Updates​

• New jupyter notebooks by Ruby (tart notebooks) these notebooks are going to be used in the inaugural TART workshop held at Rhodes.
• A new website based on Docosaurus (here)

Measurement Set updates​

Huge work by Ben Hugo on making the TART measurement set tools tart2ms. These have allowed some fantastic features:

• Rephasing of observations into a single measurement set.
• Incorporation of Catalogue in JSON into the measurement set.
• This allows potentially much more sensitive imaging!

CASA calibration​

Rhodes Calibration with CASA	Cal phase vs time

TART workshops progress​

Three TART workshops are now in various stages of preparation.

• Jan 16-17: Breakthrough listen @ Rhodes (Stanley, Ben, Oleg)
• Mid 2023: Gabon (Patrice)
• Mid 2023: Ghana (Stanley)

TART talks, mentions in media e.t.c​

• Rhodes opening... (see above)
• Sonia: gave a talk to the RATT group
• Patrice: presented to African Astronomical Society (August?)
• Stanley & Tim: Talk in Kenya (8/12/22)