Although Ohio University is light-years away from stars and galaxies, it has an out-of-world experience in an observatory that benefits students.
OU owns one-twelfth of a share of the MDM Observatory in Kitt Peak, Ariz., where one week per academic term, a few students are able to travel with a professor to get first-hand experience using a professional observatory and telescope.
OU's observation time costs about $32,000 each year; the money is used for operating costs such as electricity and maintenance to keep the observatory running, said Joe Shields, vice president of research and creative activity at OU and an astrophysics professor.
“This is what we pay for membership at the observatory,” Shields said. “The funding comes from the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Astrophysics Institute. This is all university funded.”
OU purchased its share of the observatory for $375,000 in 2005, on top of the annual operating cost, which was $21,000 at the time, according to a previous Post article.
Because of the multiple memberships and sharing among several other universities such as Ohio State University, OU has to make requests prior to using the facilities.
Markus Böttcher, associate professor of astrophysics, said that although there is limited time for the university to be at the observatory, it is more than enough for students to get the experience.
“One week is actually a huge chunk of time,” Böttcher said. “It really benefits the students who go. Because they are able to experience using professional facilities for research, we have had over 30 publications that our undergraduate and graduate students have co-authored from the research they have done there.”
There are two telescopes inside the observatory that students have the opportunity to use. The telescopes are reflectors, one with a 2.4-meter diameter and the smaller with a 1.3-meter diameter, he said.
The differences in sizes increase the power of the telescope, enabling the user to examine nebulas and galaxies. Those telescopes made the experience worthwhile enough to consider a career, said Keith Hawkins, a senior studying astrophysics.
“I had a great experience observing through those telescopes,” Hawkins said. “I got to see everything from Saturn to galaxies a million light-years away. This is the experience of what made me want to go into astrophysics.”
hy135010@ohiou.edu
