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A $1.8 million, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation will add six telescopes to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Skynet Robotic Telescope Network, expanding its reach from three to four continents.

Skynet is a software program developed by the University that controls the telescopes remotely. The network is used by professional astronomers and students.

To existing telescopes in Chile, the United States and Italy, the University will add:

• A new 32-inch diameter optical and infrared telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in the Chilean Andes. The telescope will complement six 16-inch Panchromatic Robotic Optical Monitoring and Polarimetry Telescopes (PROMPT) built in 2004. UNC is the lead partner of that project, which includes 12 regional undergraduate institutions, UNC’s Morehead Planetarium and Science Center and the U.S. and Chilean astronomical communities.
• Four new 16-inch optical telescopes at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia.
• A refurbished 20-meter radio telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, W.Va.

The grant’s principal investigator is Daniel Reichart, Ph.D., associate professor of physics and astronomy in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences and director of Skynet, PROMPT and the Morehead Observatory.

In 2005, Reichart and UNC undergraduate student Joshua Haislip (now a software engineer in Reichart’s lab) discovered the then-oldest known explosion in the universe, the afterglow of a gamma ray burst 12.8 billion years old, using both PROMPT and the SOAR (Southern Observatory for Astrophysical Research) telescope in Chile.

Since its launch shortly after that discovery, thousands of North Carolina high school students have used Skynet via a Web interface to observe the night sky in locations thousands of miles from Chapel Hill. About 13,000 elementary and middle school students and members of the public have used an introductory version of Skynet at the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center. Also, about 350 Carolina undergraduate students per year are using Skynet in introductory astronomy classes, accessing it from their laptops.

For more information, go to http://college.unc.edu/features/march2010/article.2010-03-25.4478250329

Photos:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/images/stories/news/science/2010/telescopenarowestvirginiareichart.jpg
This 20-meter radio telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, W.Va., will be refurbished as part of a $1.8 million National Science Foundation grant. Credit: Bill Saxton, National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

http://uncnews.unc.edu/images/stories/news/science/2010/telescopepromptchilephoto.jpg
Three of the existing PROMPT telescopes at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in the Chilean Andes. Credit: Aaron LaCluyze, UNC.

College of Arts and Sciences contact: Kim Spurr, (919) 962-4093, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it