TMT construction begins Monday 15 July

[TomK]

For those interested, there is a Nature paper I found on astronomical site monitoring on the Tibetan Plateau. I haven't had a chance to read it carefully, I've just skimmed it, but I posted it so anyone who wants to can read it. My quick opinion is that it looks a decent enough site, certainly not as good as Mauna Kea or Chile, especially for natural seeing and the number of clear nights, but my first impressions are it would be a good submillimeter observing site and certainly usable for optical/infrared telescopes (much more than, e.g., the Canary Islands).

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03711-z

I also wonder what an international organisation would think about the site, given that politically, China and Tibet have a bit of a history.