enlarging opportunities As a result of the students’ demonstrated capability to observe and photograph these objects with their existing 14inch telescope, the U.S. Department of Defense has awarded more than $230,000 to OSU to purchase a 24-inch telescope. When OSU’s new telescope arrives next summer, it will be the biggest and most advanced in Oklahoma, says Dr. Peter Shull, astronomer and physics professor who developed and teaches OSU’s two astronomy courses. New Telescope Brings Astronomy Program into View “This will be a real observatory-grade telescope,” he says. The remote-control function will enable Shull and his research students to collect data from the H.S. Mendenhall Observatory located southwest of Stillwater without leaving campus — a feature that will be especially welcome on cold, clear nights when observations run for hours at a time. Pre-programmable robotics will automatically open and close the retractable opening of the observatory’s dome, rotate the telescope to a specific object in the sky, and operate the electronic camera for routine observations during normal sleeping hours. The new telescope’s adaptive optics will cancel the blurring effect caused by the atmosphere. “Adaptive optics is particularly of interest to the Air Force,” Shull says, “and familiarity with this technology will give our students an edge in Air Forcerelated jobs and careers.” Shull says the Air Force is also interested in near-Earth asteroids. These are asteroids that have been knocked off their normal orbit by a collision with another asteroid in the asteroid belt. Because this happens all the time, OSU students will often use the telescope to map the asteroids’ altered orbits. “We will be able to precisely nail down their new orbits to see if they are a threat and then forward the information to a national database,” Shull says. Shull believes the new telescope and additional astronomy options will attract more students, particularly undergraduates and women, to OSU’s physics department. Statistics show higher percentages of women enroll in physics programs that have an astronomy component. The new telescope also offers OSU researchers the ability to discover exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system orbiting their own stars. “We’re starting to see a lot of journal articles about how to detect transiting exoplanets and what you need to do the job,” Shull says. “This field is very exciting, and the scientific skills OSU students will master in the process are highly regarded by the Air Force as well as science and engineering employers. “We hope the addition of this observatory-grade telescope will attract more students to the physics program and lead to phase two, the expansion of our astronomy facilities as well as the addition of a second astronomy professor and astronomy minor.” Phase two will fund an observer support building next to the OSU observatory that will provide a restroom, kitchenette, shelter from the heat or cold, a storage facility and a telescope control room. “This will allow us to host open houses, improve image quality by moving computers and observers out of the observatory, and give students the same comfort level they have when they’re working in other labs on campus,” Shull says. “While taking a long series of exposures, students want to be comfortable and maybe even finish homework or take a nap while they’re waiting!” Janet Varnum OSU sky-gazers have captured remarkable images of Earth’s celestial neighbors such as the Moon and nearby planets as well as the remote Andromeda Galaxy and Crab Nebula. courtesy College of Arts and Sciences 10
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