Steward Observatory
Organization | University of Arizona | ||||||||||
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Observatory code | 692 | ||||||||||
Location | Tucson, Arizona | ||||||||||
Coordinates | 32°14′00″N 110°56′56″W / 32.2333°N 110.9490°W | ||||||||||
Altitude | 792 meters (2,598 ft) | ||||||||||
Established | 1916 | ||||||||||
Website | Steward Observatory | ||||||||||
Telescopes | |||||||||||
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Related media on Commons | |||||||||||
Steward Observatory is the research arm of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona (UArizona). Its offices are located on the UArizona campus in Tucson, Arizona (US). Established in 1916, the first telescope and building were formally dedicated on April 23, 1923. It now operates, or is a partner in telescopes at five mountain-top locations in Arizona, one in New Mexico, one in Hawaii, and one in Chile. It has provided instruments for three different space telescopes and numerous terrestrial ones. Steward also has one of the few facilities in the world that can cast and figure the very large primary mirrors used in telescopes built in the early 21st century.
History
Steward Observatory owes its existence to the efforts of American astronomer and dendrochronologist
Then on October 18, 1916, University President
The telescope was finally installed in the observatory building in July 1922, and the Steward Observatory was officially dedicated on April 23, 1923. In his dedication address, Douglass recounted the trials and tribulations of establishing the observatory, then gave the following eloquent justification for the scientific endeavor:[3]
In concluding I wish to leave with you a more general view. This installation is to be devoted to scientific research. Scientific research is business foresight on a large scale. It is knowledge obtained before it is needed. Knowledge is power, but we cannot tell which fact in the domain of knowledge is the one which is going to give the power, and we therefore develop the idea of knowledge for its own sake, confident that some one fact or training will pay for all the effort. This I believe is the essence of education wherever such education is not strictly vocational. The student learns many facts and has much training. He can only dimly see which fact and which training will be of eminent use to him, but some special part of his education will take root in him and grow and pay for all of the effort which he and his friends have put into it. So it is with the research institutions. In this Observatory I sincerely hope and expect that the boundaries of human knowledge will be advanced along astronomical lines. Astronomy was the first science developed by our primitive ancestors thousands of years ago because it measured time. Performing that same function, it has played a vast part in human history, and today it is telling us facts, forever wonderful, about the size of our universe; perhaps tomorrow it will give us practical help in showing us how to predict climatic conditions in the future.
Observatories
Steward Observatory manages three different observing locations in southern Arizona: Mount Graham International Observatory (MGIO), Mount Lemmon Station, and Catalina Station on Mount Bigelow. It also operates telescopes at two additional important observatories: Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) and Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mount Hopkins. Steward is a partner in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III, which is located in New Mexico at Apache Point Observatory. Steward used to maintain a student observatory on Tumamoc Hill approximately 5 kilometers (3.1 mi) west of the campus, but that is no longer in operation. The original observatory dome in Tucson now houses the Ray White Jr. 21-inch telescope and is used for public outreach and undergraduate education.
The
Steward Observatory participates in many partnered projects. It is a full member in the twin
Research groups
The
The Infrared Detector Laboratory built the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) instrument for the Hubble Space Telescope and the Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS) instrument for the Spitzer Space Telescope. For the James Webb Space Telescope, Steward built the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and helped build the Mid-IR Instrument (MIRI).[6]
Other groups include the Center for Astronomical Adaptive Optics (CAAO), the Imaging Technology Laboratory (ITL), the Steward Observatory Radio Astronomy Laboratory (SORAL), the Earths in Other Solar Systems (EOS) group, and the Astrochemistry/Spectroscopy Laboratory.
Gallery
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 0-8165-0798-8.
- ^ "Anonymous Friend Gives U.A. $60,000". Arizona Daily Star. Oct 19, 1916.
- ^ Douglass, Andrew E. "Historical Address upon the Dedication of Steward Observatory". Steward Observatory. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
- ^ Mirror Castings, SOML, archived from the original on 2012-06-23, retrieved 2012-04-12
- ^ "Sixth Mirror Cast for Giant Magellan Telescope".
- ^ "NASA Readies James Webb Space Telescope for December Launch" (Press release). NASA. 8 September 2021. Retrieved 23 September 2021.
External links
- Media related to Steward Observatory at Wikimedia Commons
- Public tours of Mt. Graham are available.
- Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab