Observatory sees dramatic improvements in recent years

An incoming Ph.D. student in 2001 has been on a mission since coming to UND - improving and adding capabilities to the university's outdated and under-funded observatory.

Paul Hardersen, now an assistant professor in the Department of Space Studies and manager of the observatory, said that he wasn't impressed much by the facilities of the time in 2001. "I was taken out to the observatory, and by any standard of an observatory, it looked pretty shabby," he said.

The department managed to collect enough funds in the 1990s to build the original dome with an 18" telescope on the site, near Emerado about 10 miles west of Grand Forks. The modest 140 by 140 square feet area, a fraction of the 1,000 acres of virgin prairie land that the Biology Department manages, has seen considerable changes in recent years.

The site now has four separate telescopes, and hosts 'star parties' during the warm months to allow interested people in the region a chance to get a better view of the night sky. Hardersen said that he has many more plans for the future if the funding can be secured.

Observatory's history

In 1996, what was intended to be an Internet-controllable telescope was added to the area. Hardersen said that the new feature had a lot of flaws, and he decided to make an argument for fixing the telescope after getting a job on the faculty.

"I finally convinced the department and the college to give me some money to renovate the Internet telescope so it would actually work," he said.

By the time the repairs were over in 2005, most of the original components had to be replaced. A small radio telescope was built in 2006, and they received money for a second Internet telescope last year.

The dome that had been in use since 1992 was torn down last fall to clear space for a third Internet telescope that will be built later this year. Hardersen said that by August, the university would have three optical telescopes and one radio telescope at the location.

Another one of his goals has been to make all of the components of the observatory accessible online, enabling distance-learning students to take advantage of the facilities without having to be there in person. This will be accomplished by this summer.

According to Hardersen, students can easily learn the online controls for the telescopes in under an hour of instruction. He said that the new abilities from the technology are benefiting everyone that can use the observatory's equipment.

"We've had students using the first Internet telescope for class work, and they started to use it for research last year," he said. "We've had students as far away as Bulgaria using this."

"That's what makes it nice for students in that they don't have to be here, they don't have to be out in the cold or out in the mosquitoes and they can do it from basically a nice, warm, cozy place," he added.

Hardersen is also working on establishing the Space Grant Internet Telescope Network, which currently consists of UND and a university in South Dakota. Institutions in Utah, Alabama and Puerto Rico have also expressed interest in the network.

Once completed in about five years, he hopes to have 15 to 20 observatories around the country involved in the project. The benefit, he said, is that it provides the opportunity for research and study more often than relying on good weather.

"If you were going to be studying an asteroid to derive its light curve, and it was cloudy here, then you could use an observatory say in Alabama to work for the night so you could get your observations in more quickly," Hardersen said.

Another goal for the summer is to install a small solar telescope on the top of Ryan Hall that can be used to observe the sun. Images from the telescope will be posted online as well.

Building interest

The ultimate goal of all of these renovations and additions, Hardersen said, is to increase the importance of astronomy research at the university.

"This is really an ongoing attempt to develop the infrastructure so students have research opportunities as well as class opportunities to use the telescopes, and to really have a stronger astronomy research capability at UND," he said. "That's really one thing I want to get out, especially to undergraduates, is that these opportunities are starting to make themselves available."

Getting professional-grade equipment may be years down the road for the department, due to the enormous costs of telescopes and the difficulty of getting funding. One of Hardersen's eventual goals for UND, a one-meter professional observatory built on the current location, would require about $4 million alone.

"I haven't found the money for that yet," he said. "Just getting students involved is really what I'd like to do."

More information about the facilities can be found online at http://observatory.space.edu.