 Within a year,
a telescope for astronomical research will
sit snugly in the observatory
dome atop Florida Tech’s new F.W.
Olin Physical Sciences Building.
The
university acquired funding for the
24-inch-diameter instrument through
a National
Science Foundation (NSF) grant of $347,000
from the NSF Major Research Instrumentation
Program. An award condition, that the
university
match the amount by 30 percent, brings
the total cost of purchase and installation
to almost $496,000.
The university
earned the NSF funding for its Rising
Star Project, an effort
to acquire
support technology for astronomical
research. Department of Physics and
Space Sciences faculty members, Dr.
Terry Oswalt and Dr. Matthew
Wood, direct “Rising
Star.”
“Although
modest in size and located in town,
the telescope will be used by students
and faculty every clear night.
It will
allow us to probe the universe
from right here in Melbourne, and lead
to peer-reviewed
publications,” said Wood.
The
Rising Star Project is filled
with possibilities, some realized
by local
donors who have already stepped
forward. “We
need to form new partnerships
and to find new funding sources
in
order to achieve
all our plans for the astronomy
program. The strong vote of confidence
given by
the NSF gets us off to a good
start, I think,” said Oswalt.
For
example, also planned for the
rooftop observatory are 15
small,
8-inch instructional
telescopes to be controlled
via laptop computers.
The Department
of Physics and Space Sciences is
always seeking
funding
for undergraduate
scholarships, graduate fellowships
and graduate assistantships.
The astronomy and astrophysics
program,
one of the
largest
in the country, also aims
for some major goals. These include
building
or buying
into a telescope south of
the
equator so that students
may explore southern
skies,
and to fund an endowed chair
in the department.
The new building
will be open for classes next January
for
the spring
semester.
Students and faculty should
be able to access the
new telescope in fall 2005.
Also
in January, the department will begin
a monthly Astronomy
and Astrophysics
Lecture
Series for the community. “We’ll
offer a one-hour talk
on a topic of interest,
followed
by a public viewing session
using
the observatory telescopes,” said
Wood.
To make a donation
to the Rising Star
Project, contact
Elizabeth
Taylor at
(321) 674-6155.
Karen
Rhine |
The Office of Development is pleased
to announce a new addition to its
Web site,
a secure online giving site where donations
can be made quickly and easily with
the click of a mouse.