The Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins
John Hockemeier
On March 17 (weather permitting), the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) on Mt. Hopkins begins conducting the first public tours of the season. The observatory, located in the Santa Rita Mountains, about 12 miles southeast of Quail Creek, is one of the premier astronomical laboratories in the world and is operated jointly by the University of Arizona and the Smithsonian Institution.
The site has been in continuous operation for more than 40 years. It is on the leading edge in developing innovative astronomical instruments and techniques. Many instruments used by observatories around the world were first developed at FLWO, and progress continues.
Modern telescopes use huge mirrors to capture the dim light of distant stellar objects. Most of these mirrors were constructed in Tucson at the Stewart Laboratory, located under the football stadium at the University of Arizona. The mirror used at the Whipple Observatory was the first large mirror constructed by the laboratory. It is 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter, almost two meters (five feet) larger than the mirror in the Palomar Telescope. When dedicated in 2000, the MMT as it is known was the third largest telescope in the world. Today, it ranks fourteenth.
In addition to the MMT, the FLWO has many other telescopes and detectors in use. Some are relatively small but are used to help find some of the most distant and interesting objects in space—planets! To date, astronomers have detected more than 3500 planet candidates (not confirmed yet) and more than 100 confirmed planets. The Kepler space telescope has discovered most of these candidates but small, automated telescopes at Whipple have detected the signatures of possible planets in our celestial neighborhood.
Finding planets is hot work right now. But the observatory is doing cutting edge work in other important but less glamorous studies. Some areas include finding and learning about extremely energetic gamma-ray sources located in deep space; mapping galaxies, their distances, speeds, and composition through spectroscopic measurements; studying black holes; finding out what dark energy and dark matter are and what they mean to the laws of physics.
Tours to the observatory begin at the Visitors Center at the base of the mountains, east of Amado. The tours are conducted Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from mid-March to mid-November. Reservations are required and are being taken now. A brief video begins the adventure at 9:00 a.m. and at 9:30 a.m. a 30 passenger bus leaves the Visitors Center, returning about 3:00 p.m. The MMT on Mt. Hopkins is at an elevation of 8550 feet above sea level. Those with breathing problems may want to consider this before deciding to go. Near the summit, a stop is made in a shady, forested glen for a self-prepared lunch. Temperatures are often 15 to 20 degrees cooler than in Green Valley and can be quite chilly early in the season. To make reservations, call the Visitors Center at 879-4407. For more information, call John Hockemeier at 648-2690.