Chieftain Features MRO Installation Of New Dome at Interferometer
June 15, 2018
Reporter John Larson wrote about the assembly of the first of 10 'Unit Telescope Enclosures' to be installed at the mountaintop research facility.
A project that dates back to 2002 continues to take shape on South Baldy Mountain
at New Mexico Tech’s Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer (MROI).
(At right is an artist's rendering of the MRO Interferometer upon completion).
According to its designers, the MROI is an “astronomical installation ultimately involving an array of 10 telescopes that, when completed, is expected to be 100-200 percent stronger than the Hubble telescope.” Last week engineers began assembling the first dome – a Unit Telescope Enclosure – that will house the first of the 10 1.4-meter telescopes.
Originally, the concept was to build the 2.4-meter telescope – in operation since 2006 – to be part of an interferometer. According to MROI Project Director Ifan Payne, that all changed in 2002 when Tech joined with the Cavendish Laboratory, the physics department at the University of Cambridge.
“The systems’ architects there designed the interferometer to be a Y-shaped configuration with 10 telescopes,” Payne said.
The reason behind the MROI ...