Observatory looks to the heavens one last time
In December, David Gray will point the telescope at the Elginfield Observatory toward the night sky for the last time.
Gray, a professor emeritus in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, is the last researcher to use the telescope, located about half-an-hour north of London, to collect data. The once burgeoning observatory, which became the site of several astronomical discoveries, has since become Gray’s private workspace.
“When we first started in the late ’60s we had quite a few involved,” he says. “In recent times, the younger faculty are interested in fainter stars … you can’t do that from this site.”
Gray has been retired for several years and has decided to hand over the reins as the director of the observatory at the end of December. He has a backlog of data to work on and no longer needs to conduct ongoing observations. At this time, the telescope will no longer be used regularly for research.
“There’s a certain nostalgia and a certain sadness. As much as I enjoy observing … I can’t do it forever,” he says.
As trends in research come and go, the use of the telescope has fallen out of fashion with current astronomers in the department who are interested in different areas of research that cannot be studied using the Elginfield telescope.
“Certainly now the younger faculty are more interested in larger aperture telescopes, fainter stars (or) often not interested in stars per se at all. So, the work they are interested in can’t be done here,” he says, noting the telescope can be used to observe only bright stars.
Spearheaded by professor William Wehlau, the Elginfield Observatory was completed in 1969 and was supported by the National Research Council, the province and The University of Western Ontario. Gray joined the faculty in the mid-1960s and was part of the planning team for the new facility.
The location was selected because of its distance from London’s city lights to allow for better observations and its proximity to campus. The telescope has a light collecting mirror 1.2 metres in diamatre and it weighs 16 tons. It is the second-largest telescope in Ontario.
It is outfitted with several important instruments for analyzing starlight, including a direct camera, a polarimeter, a low-resolution spectrographs and a world-class large high-resolution spectrograph.
The Elginfield Observatory has been an ideal site for monitoring long-term variations of stars, since the area typically sees about 150 clear nights per year. One project at the facility involves monitoring solar-like stars for variations during their magnetic cycles.
Gray has a catalogue of stars he observes regularly.
Some of the major discoveries made at the observatory include developing techniques to determine stellar temperature with unprecedented accuracy (which Gray was instrumental in developing) and determining techniques for measuring stellar rotation rates with high precision.
The facility is also used to study granulation, macrotubulence, stellar surface features and magnetic cycles.
Like any other piece of lab equipment, the telescope has run its course, says Gray.
“I’m very grateful to have had this facility,” he says. “The world of astronomy has had a significant contribution brought forward by this facility.”
Although the regular use of the telescope will cease, the gates at the observatory will not close for good.
The Elginfield Observatory site is home to several other research projects, which will continue. The Department of Physics & Astronomy has placed instruments on the grounds to conduct research for measuring and detecting meteors; the Psychology department is conducting bird studies; Ecology is conducting small mammal studies; and the Biology department is completing plant and soil experiments.
On Jan. 1 professor Peter Brown, a member of the Meteor Physics Group in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, takes over as director of the Elginfield Observatory.
The facility is still going to be open. The telescope will not be used on a regular basis, but there is a great deal of additional research going on out there,” says Brown. “The telescope won’t be used day-to-day for research anymore.”
The possibility of opening up the observatory for public outreach and educational opportunities was explored, however no definite plans for use of the telescope have been made for the near future.
“It’s been a significant facility. It’s use as a multi-user facility began to trickle off in the 1990s, but it is still used even today almost every clear night, at least with Dr. Gray’s program of stellar spectroscopy,” says Brown. “It has a particular research niche.”
The facility will continue to be used, but its use will not be centred on the telescope, notes Brown.
“It’s a facility in transition that it is still a very heavily used facility,” he says. “It is actively being used but it’s just the role of research being done at the facility is moving more from the telescope to other instruments and other types of research.”