The Hobby-Eberly Telescope
contains the world's largest primary mirror.
The telescope has entered into its early operations phase and already
has helped astronomers to make exciting discoveries.
The commissioning phase for the William P. Hobby-Robert E. Eberly Telescope (HET) in West Texas, during which the telescope's sophisticated optical, mechanical and electrical systems were de-bugged, integrated and optimized for science operations, has ended and the early operations phase has begun.
"Early operations marks the beginning of regular use of the HET for science," said Frank Bash, chairman of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope board of directors, director of McDonald Observatory and the Frank N. Edmonds Jr. regents professor in astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin. "This is an important milestone for a unique and powerful new scientific instrument, and we want the astronomical community to know about it."
In early operations, the telescope will be used for scientific research for half of each month. So far, the telescope is operating with the Marcario Low-Resolution Spectrograph, designed and built by a team led by Gary Hill and Phillip MacQueen of McDonald Observatory, and the Upgraded Fiber Optic Echelle spectrograph, an instrument built at Penn State by Larry Ramsey, project scientist and professor of astronomy and astrophysics, and graduate students Jason Harlow and David Andersen.
A high-resolution spectrograph, designed and built by a team led by Robert Tull of McDonald Observatory, will be installed in early 2000, to be followed by a medium-
resolution spectrograph, being constructed under Ramsey's direction.
"The telescope already is paying scientific dividends by making contributions in the areas for which it was designed: spectroscopic surveys and time-domain astrophysics," said Ramsey, one of the inventors of the HET concept, along with Daniel Weedman, formerly at Penn State and now at the National Science Foundation Division of Astronomical
Science.
Users of the telescope report exciting results. Donald Schneider, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State; Gary Hill, of Texas; and Xiaohui Fan, a graduate student at Princeton University, have led a project to obtain HET spectra of high-redshift quasar candidates found by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. This work has continued through the fall, and the telescope has observed more than a dozen distant quasar candidates in the past few weeks.
Edward L. Robinson, the William B. Blakemore II regents professor in astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin, has used the telescope to observe a new X-ray star in visible light. The X-ray properties of the new star, named J1859+226, show that it is probably a black hole that has begun to swallow gas pulled off a normal star orbiting around the black hole. The HET observations are a unique contribution to understanding how black holes attract and swallow matter.
For more information, check the Web at http://www.as.utexas.edu/mcdonald/het/het.html or http://www.astro.psu.edu/het/.
The National Institutes of Health has announced that it will continue to fund the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) in the College of Medicine for the next five years. Just under $2.5 million from the NIH will fund the research center for the year 1999-2000, and the NIH's total grant of $12.4 million will support the clinical research center through 2004.
The GCRC, located in 3,300 square feet of space at The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, was established by the NIH in 1995 to provide specialized institutional resources that allow clinical investigators to study human physiology and treat disease with innovative approaches. Dr. Lawrence I. Sinoway, professor of medicine, oversees the GCRC.
At University Park, Penn State funding has provided the three-floor Elmore Clinical Research Center to accommodate a satellite facility of the clinical research center. The unit has grown since its inception in 1996 and also has attracted highly funded clinical investigators.
Among the major areas of investigation at the GCRC are congestive heart failure, exercise, autonomic and cardiovascular physiology, age-associated gait disorders, temperature control and muscle function in elderly persons, bone metabolism in young women, protein metabolism in muscle, treatment of hepatitis C, polycystic ovary disease, adult respiratory distress syndrome, sleep-disordered breathing, nutrition and cardiovascular risk, and insulin resistance.
The five-year grant will cover 63 research protocols from investigators in 15 separate departments.
In an effort to outsmart the elusive whitetail deer, more and more Pennsylvania hunters are taking to the trees to bag their quarry, said a hunting safety expert in the College of Agricultural Sciences.
"Hunters are climbing existing limbs or using ladders, steps or commercial climbers to reach perches about 10 to 15 feet off the forest floor," said Earle Robbins, Cooperative Extension agent in Tioga County. "Tree stands have been very popular with hunters in archery season, and now more hunters are using them during rifle season."
Robbins said hunting from tree stands can be more productive, but using them can be dangerous. Nationwide, about 10 hunters every year are killed in falls from tree stands, while many others suffer temporary or permanent injury.
Robbins recommends following these safety tips when using tree stands:
* Do not use weathered, homemade tree stands.
* Wear a safety belt or harness.
* Always unload firearms before pulling them up into (or lowering them from) the tree stand.
* Choose an obviously healthy tree with branches that can support the additional weight.
* When climbing up or down, always ensure that your hands and feet are secure at three points before moving to the fourth point.
* Closely follow manufacturer's directions when using commercial tree stands.