MRI Acquisition: A New Start for the TSU 2 m Automatic Spectroscopic Telescope

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Astronomers are beginning to outfit telescopes with control systems and instruments that allow the telescopes to work unattended, automatically observing stars and other objects under the control of a computer that also gathers the data and feeds it to software that analyzes the observations. Several such telescopes are under operation; most of them take pictures of objects through different colored filters to compare the relative fluxes of the light of objects seen in different colors. These measurements can be used to estimate the temperatures, chemical make-ups, and even velocities of some objects. But making more precise measurements of these important physical parameters requires that the light the telescope gathers be sent to an instrument called a spectrograph where it is spread out into a rainbow of colors and more sophisticated measurements can be obtained. At present few telescopes+spectrographs are operated in automatic mode, but there are many good reasons to do so, especially to monitor objects that change the light they emit due to star spots, pulsation, or occasional eclipses by orbiting companions. Dr. Francis Fekel of Tennessee State University works with such an Automatic Spectroscopic Telescope at the Fairborn Observatory in southern Arizona. He is making significant improvements to the telescope optics and camera that will increase the sensitivity and throughput and allow astronomers to study more and fainter stars and other objects. His work is supported by NSF's Major Research Instrumentation program through the Division of Astronomical Sciences.