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University President Graham B. Spanier and Robin Ciardullo,
associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics, look over an instrument
of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope in west Texas that was built by Penn State
graduate students. The president, faculty members and donors all traveled
to Texas Oct. 8 for a dedication ceremony of the $13.5 million facility,
which is expected to produce significant new information about the universe.
Photo: Vicki Fong
By Vicki Fong
Public Information
MT. FOWLKES, Texas -- Just before the open house for the Hobby Eberly Telescope on Oct. 7, a thunderstorm briefly deluged the dome with rain, a frequent occurrence in the desert. Suddenly, the sun made a blazing appearance and painted a rainbow across the sky.
The rainbow was a fitting symbol for last week's dedication of the William P. Hobby-Robert E. Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains of far west Texas. Over the past 14 years, Penn State astronomers Larry Ramsey and Dan Weedman, along with a team of astronomers and engineers from other universities, have traveled some rugged paths to reach this moment of triumph.
The Hobby-Eberly Telescope is the world's first major telescope designed primarily for spectroscopy, which measures and analyzes individual wavelengths of light to reveal detailed information about stars, galaxies and other astronomical objects.
Another distinguishing factor is its innovative design using cost-effective technology, which made it possible to construct the HET for $13.5 million -- one-sixth of the $100 million cost of each of the two Keck telescopes in Hawaii, the only comparable telescopes in the world. The HET is the third largest telescope in the world, after the Keck telescopes, and was built by a partnership of five universities: the University of Texas at Austin; Penn State; Stanford University; and two German universities, Georg-August University in Goettingen and Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich.
"We are feeling that a tremendous amount has been accomplished, but we know it's not finished yet," said Weedman, co-inventor and Penn State professor of astronomy and astrophysics. "Up until now, there had been a lot of uncertainty; we never knew when all the pieces would come together. Now all the pieces are coming together, the fun part is next, the gathering of the data."
"When the first mirror was installed in 1996, I knew we were on the path to inevitable success. Seeing first light in December 1996 was another crucial success," said Ramsey, project scientist, co-inventor and Penn State professor of astronomy and astrophysics. "Now we are struggling with technical glitches that we have anticipated -- it's like building a house, constantly fixing things and dealing with changes. But HET will be evolving and improving for the next 20 years."
Currently, the telescope is in a "commissioning" phase, in which its components are brought into optimal performance. The final instrumentation packages are being constructed elsewhere and are expected to be installed throughout 1998.
The recent ceremonies were an opportunity to show off the fruits of the team's hard work. More than 300 scientists, university administrators and supporters toured the telescope facility and attended the dedication activities.
The Hobby-Eberly Telescope is housed in an 86-foot diameter white dome, whose peak reaches 106 feet above the ground. In addition to its scientific attributes, the telescope itself inspires admiration for the beauty of its technical design. The 91 hexagonal one-meter mirrors form a gleaming honeycomb that reflects a seamless surface image of the steel trusses sustaining the dome. During demonstrations, the telescope rotated slowly and revealed a macrame of turquoise trusses in the back of the mirror bed. Four stories above the mirror bed stood the tracking system which holds the main camera, poised to capture light and images.
The facility stands on Mount Fowlkes, more than 6,000 feet above sea level, adjacent to Mount Locke, which houses the other two research telescopes of McDonald Observatory. Below stretches miles of pine scrub brush, mountain rock formation and desert range land, with the nearest town 16 miles away. Above this nearly barren earth is endless clear blue sky, which at night is one of the darkest sites in the United States and perfect for the kind of research that would be conducted by HET.
"The Hobby-Eberly Telescope has a kind of beauty, like a frigate, the fighting ships of an earlier century," said Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate, a theoretical physicist at University of Texas at Austin, and a dedication speaker. "It is an ingenious design. The telescope will be doing the best work in the world by taking light from the stars and spreading them into colors, lines and dark spots. From that, we can tell what stars are made of.
"But its main purpose is not just to learn about stars and galaxies, or even the whole universe," Weinberg said. "By studying the universe in the first moments of creation, we can learn the rules that govern everything on Earth, from the laws of nature ... to cells in our bodies."
Robert Krishner, chairman of the astronomy department at Harvard University and another speaker, noted that the telescope will allow humans to overcome the limitations of their senses.
"It's a very big eye, collecting data four million times the area of your eye," Krishner said. "And it will allow us to overcome our common sense. As people, we are very small. Our lives are so brief yet we want to understand cosmic events that happened at the awakening of civilization. HET is a time machine, capturing light that was emitted billions of light years away."
An exciting prospect will be the combination of knowledge resulting from scientific work not only by ground-based telescopes like HET, but also by space-based telescopes like the Hubble Telescope, Krishner said.
University President Graham B. Spanier, who was on hand for the dedication, noted that the day was about "reaching for the stars," but was also a reminder of how vital the work of university scientists is to society.
"The educational value of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope is very significant," he said. "It will be important in training scientific leaders of tomorrow, giving our students both a challenge and an opportunity to aim high and stretch far in their learning endeavors."
The audience at the dedication also warmly acknowledged the main benefactors: William Hobby, former lieutenant governor of Texas, and Robert E. Eberly, Penn State alumnus and chairman of Eberly & Meade Inc., an oil and natural gas production and exploration firm based in Uniontown, Pa., and Oklahoma City. He, his wife, Elouise, and other members of the Eberly family provided a $1.5 million gift to support the University's commitment to the $13.5 million telescope.
Through the Eberly Trust and Eberly Foundation, the Eberly family has been a major philanthropic contributor to Penn State and other higher education institutions in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, as well as to economic, civic and cultural initiatives in Uniontown and Fayette County.
Robert and Elouise Eberly were not able to attend the dedication, but viewed it long-distance via satellite television. His sister, Carolyn Eberly Slaney, said at the dedication that her family is extremely proud of the HET project.
The road to building HET was not without many bumps and twists over the past 14 years, despite the initial enthusiasm.
"I remember when Dan and Larry came into my office and talked about building the world's largest telescope," said Thomas Wartik, dean emeritus of the Eberly College of Science. "I thought 'what a great idea!' and took them over to see Bryce Jordan, who hadn't even unpacked all of his boxes yet in the president's office. He was very excited."
Bryce Jordan, Penn State's 14th president was just coming on board in 1983 when Ramsey and Weedman approached the administration with their idea. Jordan says he recalls talking with Eberly about supporting the project.
"My mind leaps back 10-some years ago when Bob Eberly and I came out to Mt. Locke (site of the other research telescopes at McDonald Observatory)," Jordan said during the celebration in Texas last week. "We sat on Mt. Locke and watched a huge lightning storm. It was just sensational, and we saw the possibilities."
The consortium of five universities was also highly praised for their collaborative teamwork, illustrated at the dedication by the display of the flags of Texas, Pennsylvania, California, Bavaria and Lower Saxony.
"Through this partnership, we have been able to reach farther and higher than any one institution could do alone," Spanier said.
The partners will be "pioneers in the search for new planets and worlds, expanding the knowledge of the universe," said Peter Flawn, president ad interim of the University of Texas at Austin.
While small glitches are being ironed out, the full-time gathering of scientific data remains many months away. But the HET project is already attracting worldwide attention, particularly from Australian and South African universities interested in building similar facilities in the Southern Hemisphere.
"Perseverance got us this far," Ramsey said. "And perseverance will see us the rest of the way through."
