Astrophysics: Optical Astronomy
Faculty in this area of research:
MIT is a partner in the
Magellan consortium. Of its two 6.5-m telescopes on Cerro
Las Campanas in Chile's Atacama desert, the first, the Baade Telescope,
was dedicated on December 9, 2000, and began science operations
on February 14, 2001. The second, the Clay telescope, began science
operations in September, 2002. The Magellan
Instant Camera (MagIC), the first instrument built specifically
for the telescopes, was commissioned in March 2001 by a group led
by James
Elliot.
Using
Magellan, MIT astronomers are able to obtain the sharpest astronomical
images on earth without image correction (median seeing is 0.55
arcsec, and the best seeing disks are smaller than 0.30 arcsec).
Paul
Schechter is leading an adaptive optics program to improve the
image quality even further over a large field of view without reliance
upon bright reference stars. The excellent seeing and large focal
plane also make the Magellan telescopes an outstanding facility
for astronomical spectroscopy.
MIT
optical astronomers study galaxies, clusters of galaxies, quasars
and intergalactic gas to investigate the amounts and distribution
of both ordinary (baryonic) matter and dark matter in the universe.
Paul Schechter studies gravitational mirages ("lenses") produced
by the gravitational deflection of light, in order to measure cosmic
parameters and deduce the distribution of dark matter around galaxies.
James
Elliot is a planetary scientist studying objects in the outer
solar system. When a solar system body occults a background star,
the light curve gives information about the atmosphere and planetary
rings. Bodies of particular interest are Pluto, Triton, and Kuiper
Belt objects.
The Magellan
telescopes are open to use by the broader MIT astronomical community.
They are widely used to search for and study optical counterparts
of X-ray and gamma-ray sources.
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