Mt Hopkins Whipple Observatory

Mount Hopkins

Whipple Observatory

Brief History

For more information on Mount Hopkins Whipple Observatory visit:

www.sao.arizona.edu/FLWO/whipple.html Coordinates 31°40′52″N 110°52′42″W

Whipple Visitors Centre

“Spectacular and the stories of how the observatory was built and how the huge mirrors were delivered

to the top are inspiring.”

How to get there from Tuscan

The administrative complex for the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory is 43 road miles south of Tucson and 38 road

miles north of Nogales, Arizona.

Drive south on Interstate 19 to exit 56 (Canoa). At the bottom of the exit ramp, take the second right at the roundabout and continue around until you can drive under the freeway to the frontage road on the east side. Turn right and drive south three miles to Elephant Head Road. Turn left and drive east, crossing the Santa Cruz River on Elephant Head Bridge. One mile east of the river, turn right on Mount Hopkins Road. Drive southeast about seven miles to the Observatory Office.

Contact Information

670 Mount Hopkins Road

Amado, AZ 85645

Phone: 520 670 5705

FLWO visitors centre features displays and exhibits on astronomy, astrophysics, natural science, and the cultural history of the area. “Exhibits include models of the 6.5-meter MMT, a three-dimensional model of galaxy distribution in the Universe, and a touchable topographical map of the Santa Rita Mountains. Other displays trace the history of optical telescope development from Galileo to the new instruments planned for the 21st Century, recount the many Smithsonian research projects in Arizona during the past century, and describe current investigations in gamma-ray astronomy. A natural history exhibit examines those animals active in the night time, and features a large colour transparency of the night sky over southern Arizona. In addition to the interior exhibits, the Visitors Centre complex includes an outdoor patio with a Native American petroglyph discovered on site during construction, interpretative signage describing desert flora, and stunning views of the surrounding Santa Rita Mountains. A telescope and a set of wide-field binoculars are available on the outdoor patio to allow public visitors to capture close-up views of the MMT Observatory on the distant summit of Mt. Hopkins, as well as to view natural features of the surrounding Santa Rita Range of the Coronado National Forest and to see the telescopes of the Kitt Peak Observatory located some 50 miles to the west. A trailhead, rest rooms, and picnic area developed by the Forest Service and located just outside the main gate are open 24 hours a day. There are benches, grills, and a hardened path that leads to vantage points overlooking Montosa Wash, a deep drainage running

parallel to the site.”

The Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) is located on the slopes of Mount Hopkins in Arizona, USA. The observatory is part of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) - a research institute of the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian Institution was established for “the increase and diffusion of knowledge” and is

a group of research centres and museums such as FLWO.

The FLWO was established between1966-1968 and, in 1981, named in honour of Fred Lawrence Whipple an American Astronomer and director of the SAO. In 1931 after graduating with a PhD in Astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, Whipple helped map the orbit of the newly discovered planet Pluto. He also studied the trajectories of meteors, confirming that they came from within our Solar System rather than from interstellar space. However, Whipple is more famously known for his discovery of the periodic comet 36P/Whipple, the asteroid 1252 Celestia, and his paper entitled A Comet Model where he proposed the

" i cy conglomera te" hypothes is of comet composition (later called the

"dirty snowball" hypothesis).

Dirty Snowball : This hypothesis

talks about the forma�on of comets

and their composi�on which is

believed to comprise

of rock, dust, water ice, and frozen

gases. Fred Lawrence Whipple

Telescopes

Telescopes at FLWO Type and size Wavelength

MMT Observatory 6.5 m reflector Optical

1.5 m Telescope 1.5 m reflector Optical

1.2 m Telescope 1.2 m reflector Optical

PAIRITEL 1.3 m reflector Infra Red

Whipple 10 m 10 m IACT Gamma

VERITAS 12 m IACT Gamma

HATNet telescope 6x 11cm refractor Optical

MEarth 8x 40cm reflector Optical

VERITAS—Very Energe*c Radia*on

Imaging Telescope Array System

Whipple 10 Meter IACT

The MMT is notable because of its interesting building, which does not look like a typical observatory dome.

Whipple Observatory is home to some fascinating optical, X-ray and gamma telescopes. Situated in the Santa Rita Mountains, at an altitude of 2,606 meters, Whipple’s location is ideal for dark skies and dry conditions enabling its seven telescopes to image and take spectra of extragalactic, stellar, and planetary

bodies.

MMT—Many Mirrored Telescope

Whipple observatory hosts the Many Mirror Telescope Observatory (MMTO), which houses a 6.5-meter telescope. The name originates from the fact that the telescope used to be made of six smaller mirrors before the current primary honeycomb design mirror was installed. The observatory’s unique shape allows the walls and roof around the telescope to completely roll back enabling the telescope to cool down quickly. The telescope is positioned above the Earth's lower atmosphere which helps to reduce the impact of atmospheric effects. MMT is the 14th biggest optical reflecting telescope in

the world.

VERITAS is located at the basecamp of the FLWO. This gamma-ray observatory houses an array of four 12m optical reflectors, which are used for high energy (50GeV - 50TeV) gamma-ray astronomy – energies which are associated with supernovae,

pulsars, quasars, and black holes.

VERITAS therefore, offers the only direct probe of the extreme conditions in these exciting phenomena. The telescope design is based on the design of the already existing 10m gamma-ray telescope, based at FLWO – the predecessor to VERITAS. VERITAS uses the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique (IACT) - a method which works by imaging the very short flash of Cherenkov radiation generated by relativistic charged particles which are produced when a very high-energy gamma ray

strikes the atmosphere.

There are 350 individual mirrors on each 12m telescope reflector

in VERITAS.

The Whipple 10 m gamma-ray telescope is the predecessor to VERITAS and it has been in operation since 1968. The reflector holds a total of 248 hexagonal mirrors and operates between 300 GeV and 10 TeV. Its main aim is to search for and study gamma ray sources in the energy range of 300 GeV - 10 TeV. The telescopes primary mission is to search for and monitor Blazers to see if there is an increased activity or anything interesting happening. Secondary to this the 10m IACT

acts as an alert system to the VERITAS array.

The 10m telescope is

famous for its detection

of the first ever TeV

gamma-ray source, the

Crab Nebula in 1989.

FACT: Whipple also invented the

"Whipple Shield"; a hypervelocity

shield which vaporizes small particles on

impact with spacecraft thus protecting them.

HATNet Telescope

MEarth Telescope

FACT: The FLWO is known for its ground breaking work in

Gamma-ray astronomy with both VERITAS and the 10m gamma-

ray telescope.

For more information on VERITAS, MMT, HATNet and MEarth please see

additional guides by Anna Gavrila, Adam Johnson and Sam Whittaker

In June 2008 PAIRITEL caught the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst now named GRB 080607’s, about three minutes after the explosion. The afterglow’s light has been greatly dimmed and reddened by interstellar dust in its host galaxy, 11.5 billion light years away.

PAIRITEL— Peters Automated IR Imaging

Telescope

FLOW is also home to a robotic 1.3m reflector named The Peters Automated IR Imaging Telescope. The PAIRTEL is part of a collaboration of twin telescopes called 2MASS (Two Micron All Sky Survey). This collaboration houses two 1.3m telescopes, one in the Northern hemisphere at the summit of Mt. Hopkins, Arizona (PAIRITEL) and the other in the Southern hemisphere at the summit of Cerro Tololo, Chile. The arrangement of these two telescopes means that observations made cover the entire sky. 2MASS has scanned the entire sky in three near-infrared bands (using infrared cameras) in order to provide direct answers to questions on the large-scale structure of the Milky Way and the Local Universe. The collaboration set out to detect galaxies in the "Zone of Avoidance", a strip of sky obscured in visible light by our own galaxy, as well to detect brown dwarfs. Furthermore it aimed to complete an extensive survey of low mass stars - the most common type of star both in our own galaxy and others - cataloguing all detected stars and galaxies along the way. The FLWO also houses two similar 1.2m and 1.5m reflector

telescopes .

Infrared Imaging telescope.

The HATNet project which was established in 2003 was developed to detect and characterize extrasolar planets as well as to find and monitor bright variable stars. The project, which consists of a network of six small 11cm Hungarian-made Automated Telescope (HAT), has evolved in more recent years to search for the tiny (1%) transit

signature of extrasolar planets as they go in front of their central star. NATNet recently achieved its first transiting exoplanet detection, HAT-P-1b.

MEarth (pronounced “mirth”) is project which surveys nearby M dwarf stars in search of new Earth-like exoplanets. The robotically controlled telescope consists of eight 16 inch identical telescopes and is located in a single enclosure with a roll-off roof. As the telescope is robotically controlled it can take hundreds of observations each night without the need for any human intervention. However, the robotically controlled telescopes in the heart of Arizona don’t come without their they problems. Curious ring-tailed cats called Bassariscus astutus enjoy crawling on the primary mirrors of the telescopes. But in 2009 they took the night off as MEarth discovered its first super-Earth exoplanet, named GJ1214b.

FACT: VERITAS can only operate under clear, dark skies - the

observatory shuts down for ~6 days every month around full moon.

One of the six cells designed to hold the 72-inch mirrors of the Multiple Mirror Telescope (MMT) is lowered into the building on the top of Mt. Hopkins, Arizona, 1978

SAO director Fred Lawrence Whipple (middle) at the 10-m Gamma Ray Reflector on the day the 'Mount Hopkins Observatory' opened its doors in 1968

A winding, single-lane, dirt road 18 miles long connects the Smithsonian's Whipple Observatory atop Mount Hopkins in Arizona with the outside world. In 1984, a 1.5-mile section of the road at the very top, between the 8,550-foot summit and the 7,600-foot 'ridge' was paved.