Astronomy & Astrophysics

Agreement with National Observatory Provides Clemson Graduate Students and Faculty Abundant Access to World-Class Telescopes in Both Hemispheres

Clemson University has reached an agreement with the National Science Foundation-funded National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) providing guaranteed access to 10% of the observing time per year on the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) 4-m Mayall telescope. Since the mid-1970's the Mayall 4-m has been a groundbreaking workhorse of the U.S. national observatory system, which includes the new giant twin Gemini 8-m telescopes in Hawai`i and Chile. The three-year agreement, signed in June, also allows Clemson astronomers to exchange half of their 4-m time for nights on nearly every other optical telescope in the U.S. national system.  

An aerial view of the Kitt Peak National Observatory outside of Tucson, Arizona looking north. The KPNO 4-m Mayall is visible as the largest telescope.   NOAO/AURA/NSF

The agreement was made possible by an extremely generous $100,000 grant from the Seneca-based Charles Curry Foundation. Notes Jeremy King, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, “This agreement demonstrates Clemson’s commitment to world-class basic inquiry, graduate education and training, and frontier research resources.” Adds King, “It is also tremendously humbling and gratifying to witness the continuing generous support of the Curry Foundation in strengthening graduate astrophysics research opportunities at Clemson”.  

Access to NOAO telescopes will yield unprecedented opportunities for student participation in astrophysics research. Says King, “The Clemson-NOAO collaboration provides guaranteed access to a large number and variety of telescopes in both the northern and southern hemispheres with a suite of diverse instrumentation that is virtually unrivaled and unavailable to students at any other University in the world.” Beyond this, the NOAO agreement will promote Clemson's involvement in astrophysics to thousands of public visitors to Kitt Peak each year.

Clemson astronomers will use their guaranteed telescope access to investigate the origin of hyperenergetic gamma-ray bursts, track the evolution of supernovae explosions, determine the composition of high redshift gas in the intergalactic medium, search for the formation of planets in circumstellar disks around other stars, and probe physics in the atmospheres and interiors of stars in the Milky Way.

For more information on graduate astrophysics at Clemson, go to http://www.clemson.edu/ces/astro