CU Kicks in to Join Telescope
Consortium in New Mexico

Pie-in-the-sky dreams of owning and operating their own large telescope have come into clear focus for University of Colorado faculty and student astronomers.

CU officials announced last week they have joined a consortium with five other major universities by buying part-ownership in a high-altitude observatory perched atop Apache Point northeast of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

According to Michael Shull, chairman of CU's Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences Department, access to the instrument will open doors to a new world of research opportunities, especially for undergraduate students.

Built in.1993, the Apache Point Observatory telescope consists of a single 3.5-meter mirror situated in clear mountain air at an elevation of 10,000 feet.

"That's considered pretty large. There's only a few cutting-edge telescopes that are larger," Shull said. "We're now up there with the best national observatories."

CU's astronomy faculty and graduate program already are ranked the 12th-best in the nation by the National Academy of Sciences, and among the top five for public universities.

But while faculty have had access to some of the world's most powerful telescopes-Kitt Peak in Arizona, Mount Palomar in California, the Keck Telescope in Hawaii and Hubble Space Telescope-student researchers have operated in a vacuum or scraped for spare time on astronomy instruments.

"What we've never had is the ability to go to one of these telescopes on short notice with a brand new idea and try it out," Shull said. "We didn't have the funding to have our students build instruments or try out new techniques.

"I often said to donors that we were the best university astronomy program without our own telescope," he said. "Now, I can't say that anymore."

An undergraduate astronomy program was not created until last year, but Shull said he expects the attraction of the telescope, along with the strength of the graduate program, to place the university into elite company.

"This is going to give us a shot at some of the very best students," he said. The other members of the Astrophysical Research Consortium are Princeton, the University of Chicago, University of Washington, Johns Hopkins and New Mexico State.

"Our partners are fantastic universities," Shull said.

Alumni and other private sources contributed the majority of the $450,000 needed to join the consortium, with faculty kicking in more than $330,000 of their own money in donations.

Consortium membership gives CU a 6 ¼ percent ownership in the telescope and an allocation of 40 nights of viewing a year to conduct research.

The first observing run is scheduled for Sept. 24-26, when astronomy faculty members Erica Ellingson and John Stocke will begin a study of faint clusters of galaxies billions of light years away.

In addition to its financial backing, CU has committed to providing the telescope with a state-of-the-art, $450,000 infrared camera, which is being built by students and faculty with the assistance of Boulder-based Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp.

According to Shull, the department is still about half way to its fund-raising goal.

As part of the telescope project, researchers plan to install equipment at CU that will allow users to control the telescope remotely from campus to save travel time to and from New Mexico.

Shull said the next goal is to get CU part-ownership in an 8-meter telescope.

"If we're going to be participants in modern astronomy," he said, "our faculty and students deserve the best tools on Earth."