Telescope array opens at Whipple

Forty year ago, young Irish astronomer Trevor Weekes arrived at a nearby mountain observatory with some large mirrors from naval searchlights to begin the search for the elusive Gamma-ray.

Saturday, more than 250 people, including some of the world’s best-known Gamma-ray astronomers and administrators watched as the newest version of the telescope swung upward.

After years of working with a single telescope on Mount Hopkins, Weekes and associates will now use a four-telescope array,  the Veritas, at the Mount Hopkins Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory.

Gamma-rays are the most powerful particles yet found in space, but fortunately the Earth’s atmosphere can stop them cold.

The new telescopes will look for the faint blue light that flickers briefly when the Gamma-rays are destroyed. It’s called Cherenkov’s light after Nobel winner Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, a Soviet physicist.

Cherenkov’s radiation is remarkable because it moves faster in the atmosphere than light can move there. In a vacuum, light wins hands down.

As rain threatened at dusk Saturday, Weekes gave the command to raise the telescopes.

Weekes told the audience that Saturday’s event was called a “First light celebration,” a significant event for all astronomers when they first receive light caught by a new telescope.

Weekes joked, “Actually, we received first light several months ago. We’ve been celebrating ever since.”

Each telescope consists of 350 curved, six-sided mirrors, 28 inches across at the widest point.  The telescopes are all about 40 feet across.

Each mirror reflects the light it catches into a camera on an extension arm in front of each telescope. All the images are combined electronically.

Each telescope is somewhat reminiscent of a bee’s eye made up of scores of light-gathering little cells.

The new four-telescope array cost about $20 million and is located at the Whipple Observatory’s administration office and visitor center on the Mount Hopkins Highway.

Scientists from Canada, Ireland and Great Britain joined the spectators as the four telescopes.

The Veritas, for Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System, is a joint project of several institutions and funded by the U.S Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council in Canada, Science Foundation Ireland and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council in the United Kingdom.

In a short interview Saturday, Weekes attributed the new telescope “to a lot of effort by a lot of good people.”

When the Smithsonian and other supporting groups decided to create a multiple telescope array, they  proposed building it in Montosa Canyon, east of the current site. They wanted to install seven telescopes there.

However, the U.S. Forest Service delayed building it there.

Then the Smithsonian proposed building it on Kitt Peak, an observatory to the northeast.

But that also has been delayed.

The participants said, however, they expect to eventually build there.

Speakers at Saturday’s event included those from Purdue University, Iowa State University, University College of Dublin, the University of Utah and University of Chicago.

jlamb@gvnews.com | 547-9749