LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) — The Wyoming Infrared Observatory, located at the top of Jelm Mountain, is putting the final touches on upgrades made possible by a $750,000 grant from NASA.
Earlier this month, a high-speed microwave Internet connection was installed, connecting the observatory with the University of Wyoming campus.
“We’re going to be able to control the telescope and download image data from the telescope to any remote location,” project manager Jerry Bucher said. “People on campus will be able to use the telescope from campus, but really, anyone around the world will be able to use the telescope to acquire and transmit data to their observing location.”
The new Internet connection is important for the operation of a new 16-megapixel wide-band imaging camera that will be delivered and installed over the coming weeks.
The camera will be sensitive to ultraviolet light and replaces the observatory’s current four-megapixel camera. The new camera’s larger field of view will allow scientists to complete sky surveys more than four times faster than before. Thanks to the new Internet connection, the 32-million-byte images it creates can be sent anywhere.
“This is a state-of-the-art detector,” Chip Kobulnicky, observatory director and UW associate professor, said in a previous article.
The final piece of equipment, which will be installed in early October, is a new diesel generator to provide more reliable emergency power.
“We’ve got a tiny little generator, and it’s not adequate to really support remote observing,” Bucher tells the Laramie Boomerang (http://bit.ly/NxKTeq).
Kobulnicky said the changes are the most significant improvements to be implemented at the observatory in the last 10 years, and they’ll make it more competitive with bigger facilities around the country.
The observatory’s 2.3-meter telescope sits at almost 10,000 feet atop Jelm Mountain 25 miles southwest of Laramie. The telescope is the largest in Wyoming and has helped attract $6 million in research funding to UW in the past few years, according to Kobulnicky.
The NASA grant that enabled the upgrades was made through a program called the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCoR. Its goal is to develop partnerships between NASA programs and academic institutions.
In 2011, when the UW grant was awarded, NASA provided $20 million in funding to 27 proposals from colleges and universities around the country through a merit-based, peer-reviewed selection process.
According to the university’s proposal, the observatory is used by everyone from middle school students during summer science camp to undergraduates from around the country to astronomers and scientists performing research that supports NASA’s space mission.
“There is a high demand and great scientific potential for a mid-sized telescope able to support NASA objectives, given continued investment in observatory infrastructure that will help increase its user base and scientific output,” the proposal states.
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Information from: Laramie (Wyo.) Daily Boomerang, http://www.laramieboomerang.com
