The status of the HESS project

The High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) is a system of four, 107 m ² mirror area, imaging Cherenkov telescopes under construction in the Khomas Highland of Namibia (1800 m asl). The HESS system is characterised by a low threshold (∼100 GeV) and a ∼1% Crab flux sensitivity resulting from the good angular resolution and background rejection provided by the stereoscopic technique. The first two telescopes are operational and first results are reported here. The remaining two telescopes (of HESS Phase-I) will be commissioned early in 2004.