Wyoming telescope celebrations

The University of Wyoming department of physics and astronomy hosted a free public presentation in Ocober to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its 2.3-meter IR telescope located 25 miles southwest of Laramie on Jelm Mountain. Featured speakers included the telescope’s initiators and former UW faculty Robert Gehrz and John Hackwell. Gehrz and Hackwell led a team in the mid-1970s to build what was then the largest IR telescope in the world. Housed in the Wyoming Infrared Observatory (WIRO), the telescope has been widely used to study planet formation, stars, and other astrophysical phenomena.

Coinciding with the celebrations was news that WIRO was awarded $400 000 from NSF and $100 000 from the university’s research office to upgrade the telescope’s aging electronics-control system. Increasing failures in the circuitry had led to inaccuracies in both pointing and tracking and had prompted the large-scale upgrades. “We can’t wait to replace all the antiquated electronics with streamlined versions using newer technology,” says WIRO director Daniel Dale. The revamped telescope will be accurate to better than 10⁻⁵ of a degree, “good enough to see a dime at the distance of the moon,” says project designer and UW professor Henry Kobulnicky. The upgrades are scheduled to be completed by June; users outside of the Wyoming research community will have access on a competitive basis starting in 2009.