Kelly Hutsell

Rick Hale, associate professor of aerospace engineering, adjusts the lightest telescope of its size before vibration tests resume. The engineering school helped developed the telescope and will continue testing for about two more months before its permanent installation in California.

The University of Kansas School of Engineering and the department of physics and astronomy are making the stars more accessible to students.

Researchers, led by University faculty, unveiled an ultra-lightweight, 16-inch telescope prototype at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society, held Jan. 9-13.

KU researchers and those with San Diego State University, Dartmouth College and Composite Mirror Applications have worked since May of 2003 to develop a one-meter telescope that weighs one-tenth its normal weight. Dual grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Aerospace Agency are funding the project’s goal to use lightweight materials instead of the traditional glass and steel support structure.

“We’ve spent half our contract just trying to figure out what to do,” Richard Hale, associate professor of aerospace engineering, said. “There’s no guidebook or manual for this.”

Barbara Anthony-Twarog, professor of physics and astronomy, said the project’s final telescope will give astronomy students a better opportunity to do research. Anthony-Twarog is in charge of developing the software that will operate the telescope. The software will aim to operate the observatory remotely and robotically. Instead of traveling to observatories, a computer with an Internet connection is all a researcher needs.

The program would allow researchers to enter coordinates and have the telescope take pictures and send them electronically to the user.

“Travel to an observatory just isn’t feasible,” Anthony-Twarog said. “It’s too much time, too much money.”

Hannah Swift, Olathe junior and president of Astronomical Associates of Lawrence, said telescope time is one of the limiting factors of astronomical research.

“What if you have a telescope for seven nights and six of those seven are cloudy?” Swift said.

The telescope is scheduled for completion in January 2006. It will be installed at SDSU’s Mount Laguna Observatory.

Hale and Anthony-Twarog said that the price of ultra-lightweight telescopes would be more expensive than conventional models, but that could change.