VERITAS: A next generation very high energy gamma-ray telescope - art. no. 62670B

VERITAS (the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) is one of a new generation of ground-based gamma-ray observatories. It is being built by a collaboration of ten institutions from Canada, Ireland, the U.K. and the U.S.A.. VERITAS uses the imaging atmospheric Cherenkov technique (IACT) which was developed by the Whipple collaboration using the Whipple 10m telescope. The 10m was the first ground-based gamma-ray telescope to detect both galactic and extragalactic sources of TeV gamma rays. VERITAS is designed to operate in the range from 50 GeV to 50 TeV with optimal sensitivity near 200 GeV; it will effectively overlap with the next generation of space-based gamma-ray telescopes.