The Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory is an American astronomical

observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysical, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. His ...

owned and operated by the

Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) is a research institute of the Smithsonian Institution, concentrating on astrophysical studies including galactic and extragalactic astronomy, cosmology, solar, earth and planetary sciences, the ...

(SAO); it is their largest field installation outside of their main site in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

. It is located near Amado, Arizona on the summit, a ridge and at the foot of Mount Hopkins. Research activities include imaging and spectroscopy of extragalactic, stellar, solar system and extra-solar bodies, as well as gamma-ray and

cosmic-ray Cosmic rays are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar System in our own ...

astronomy.

History

In 1966, roadwork began on the current site with funding granted for the Smithsonian Mt. Hopkins Observatory. The Whipple 10-meter gamma-ray telescope was constructed in 1968. Formerly known as The Mount Hopkins Observatory, the observatory was renamed in late 1981 in honor of

Fred Lawrence Whipple Fred Lawrence Whipple (November 5, 1906 – August 30, 2004) was an American astronomer, who worked at the Harvard College Observatory for more than 70 years. Amongst his achievements were asteroid and comet discoveries, the " dirty snowball" h ...

, noted planetary expert, space science pioneer, and director emeritus of SAO, under whose leadership the Arizona facility was established.

Equipment

Whipple observatory hosts the MMT Observatory, which is jointly run by SAO and the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

and houses a 6.5-meter telescope. The observatory also has 1.5- and 1.2-meter reflectors and a second 1.3-meter reflector named PAIRITEL (Peters Automated IR Imaging Telescope, ex-2MASS ). Also on site is the

HATNet The Hungarian Automated Telescope Network (HATNet) project is a network of six small fully automated "HAT" telescopes. The scientific goal of the project is to detect and characterize extrasolar planets using the transit method. This network is use ...

(Hungarian-made Automated Telescope) network, the

MEarth Project The MEarth Project is a United States NSF-funded, robotic observatory that is part of Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona, US. The project monitors the brightness of thousands of red dwarf stars with the goal of finding tra ...

, and four 0.7-meter telescopes of the automated

Miniature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array The MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA) is a ground-based robotic dedicated exoplanet observatory. The facility is an array of small-aperture robotic telescopes outfitted for both photometry and high-resolution Doppler spectroscop ...

(MINERVA). The observatory is known for its pioneering work in ground-based gamma-ray astronomy through the development of the

Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique IACT stands for Imaging Atmospheric (or Air) Cherenkov Telescope or Technique. It is a device or method to detect very-high-energy gamma ray photons in the photon energy range of 50 GeV to 50 TeV. There are four operating IACT systems: ...

(IACT) with the Whipple 10-meter Telescope during the early 1980s. The Whipple 10-meter is currently preparing to be decommissioned after forty years of service. In April 2007, VERITAS (a system of 4 IACT telescopes with 12-meter reflectors) started full operations at the FLWO basecamp. Subsequently, in September 2009, after a 4-month effort, one of the telescopes was moved to a new position, making the array symmetric and increasing its sensitivity.

References

External links

*
Arizona.edu: Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whipple, Fred Lawrence, Observatory Astronomical observatories in Arizona Santa Rita Mountains Science museums in Arizona Museums in Santa Cruz County, Arizona Buildings and structures in Santa Cruz County, Arizona Smithsonian Institution research programs Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics 1968 establishments in Arizona Research institutes in Arizona

History

Equipment

See also

References

External links