Wisconsin astronomers acquire Kitt Peak telescope

Working through the WIYN consortium, astronomers from UW–Madison and three other UW System schools – UW-Oshkosh, UW-Stevens Point and UW-Whitewater – have entered into an agreement with the National Optical Astronomical Observatories to acquire and operate a 0.9-meter telescope atop Kitt Peak, Ariz.

The telescope, together with state-of-the-art instrumentation, will provide a wide-field imaging capability unsurpassed in the Northern Hemisphere, according to Robert Mathieu, a UW–Madison professor of astronomy and chair of the WIYN consortium’s board of directors.

The WIYN consortium is a collaboration of UW–Madison, Indiana University, Yale University and the National Optical Astronomical Observatories. The consortium already operates the 3.5-meter WIYN Telescope on Kitt Peak.

The telescope acquired by the WIYN consortium is a Kitt Peak workhorse. Built in 1965, the 0.9-meter telescope is relatively small by the standards of today’s megatelescopes, but the power of the telescope lies in its wide field of view, says Mathieu.

“A small telescope is like a wide-angle lens” on a camera, Mathieu explained. “Small telescopes ‘see’ more of the sky. This telescope is a superb wide-field lens and, in combination with the instruments that we will be installing behind it, it will allow us to do forefront science.”

The opportunity to acquire the telescope atop Kitt Peak was too good to pass up, Mathieu says. The hard currency of modern astronomy is telescope time. Astronomers must compete for what little observing time is available at the big telescopes. Having your own telescope with dedicated time for major observing programs opens the door not only for cutting-edge science, Mathieu says, but paves the way for Wisconsin students to gain valuable experience conducting major observing programs on a big telescope.

“The primary motivation behind WIYN operation of the telescope is cutting-edge scientific research,” says Mathieu. “But much of this forefront research will be done by undergraduate and graduate students.

“Having large amounts of observing time provides students with opportunities to explore on their own. It is very effective educationally, and is much more closely linked to what is science than classroom lectures and problem sets. It’s also a great deal more fun.”

A key motivation for the initiative, according to Mathieu, is to have the telescope serve as a focal point for developing relationships between schools within the UW System. “It’s a way to build bonds between faculty throughout the state. Many Wisconsin schools are home to superb professors of astronomy who have only a few or no colleagues. Creating a network of faculty centered on this telescope builds bridges for Wisconsin undergraduates to move between the different colleges and universities.”

UW–Madison Chancellor John Wiley says the newly acquired telescope is “a terrific opportunity to blend the university’s teaching and research missions, especially at the undergraduate level.”

Wiley says it is also a chance to establish new scholarly and working relationships with other UW System schools.

Among the observing programs contemplated for the 0.9-meter Kitt Peak telescope are studies of black holes in both the Milky Way and distant galaxies, the primordial gas from which nearby galaxies may have formed, and asteroids.

Because the telescope has a wide field of view, Mathieu says, it will be ideal for studies of such things as comets which, because they are nearby, take up large chunks of the sky.

The $503,000 cost of the project is being divided among WIYN consortium members with UW–Madison chipping in $140,000, UW-Oshkosh committing $20,000, and both UW-Stevens Point and UW-Whitewater contributing $28,000 each.