Mount Stromlo Observatory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Remains of the old administration building with the dome of the Farnham telescope

Remains of the dome of the 50-inch Great Melbourne telescope

Mount Stromlo Observatory (MSO) located just outside of Canberra, Australia, is part of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University (ANU).

1 History
2 Research
3 Advanced instrumentation
4 Location
5 See also
6 External links
7 Reference

[edit] History

The observatory was established in 1924 as The Commonwealth Solar Observatory. The Mount Stromlo site had already been used for observations in the previous decade, with the Oddie telescope being located there in 1911. The dome built to house the Oddie telescope was the first Commonwealth building constructed in the newly established Australian Capital Territory. Until World War II, the observatory specialised in solar and atmospheric observations. During the war the workshops contributed to the war effort by producing gun sights, and other optical equipment. After the war, the observatory shifted direction to stellar and galactic astronomy and was renamed The Commonwealth Observatory.

The ANU was established in 1946 in nearby Canberra and joint staff appointments and graduate studies where almost immediately undertaken. A formal amalgamation took place in 1957 with Mount Stromlo Observatory becoming part of the ANU.

On January 18, 2003 the devastating Canberra firestorm hit Mount Stromlo (which is surrounded by a plantation pine forest) destroying five telescopes, workshops, seven homes and the heritage listed administration building. The only telescope to escape the fires was the 1868 15-centimetre Farnham telescope.

Redevelopment is now under way with the restoration of several of the heritage buildings and the construction of new workshops.

[edit] Research

Mount Stromlo Observatory has been at the forefront of astrophysical research.

The MACHO project detected gravitational lensing of Magellanic Cloud stars by star mass objects in our Galaxy. This used the Great Melbourne Telescope and a mosaic of 4 2048 by 2048 pixel CCDs. At the time, this was the highest resolution digital camera ever built. THe camera was built by the Centre for Particle Astrophysics in California (CFPA). Observations began in July 1992 and the project concluded in December 1999. It made 200 billion stellar measurements. Data was processed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Brian Schmidt, who started work at Mount Stromlo in 1995, organised an international collaboration to study type Ia supernovae. This was called the High-z Supernova Search Team. This found 30 supernovae type Ia in two years. SN1995K had a redshift of +0.478 and SN1997ff had 1.7z. The conclusion was that the Universe expansion is accelerating, contrary to expectations. This discovery was Science Magazine's breakthrough of the year for 1998.

[edit] Advanced instrumentation

A new rapid survey telescope, SkyMapper, is under construction. SkyMapper will reside at the ANU's other observatory (Siding Spring) and operated remotely from Mount Stromlo.

[edit] Location

Mount Stromlo Locality Map

Mount Stromlo Observatory is located at an altitude of 770 metres above sea level on Mount Stromlo. Situated west of the centre of Canberra, near the district of Weston Creek. Canberra's main water supply treatment plant is located nearby.