Research Facilities

The Astronomy Department operates a number of facilities to support research and teaching in astronomy and astrophysics.  Instrumentation development in the Department utilizes departmental laboratories for mechanical, electronic, and optical design and construction.

Indiana University is a partner in the WIYN telescope consortium which operates both a 3.5-meter telescope and a 0.9-meter telescope atop Kitt Peak southwest of Tucson, AZ.  WIYN consists of the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, Yale University, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories. Indiana University has a 17% share in WIYN.  The WIYN telescope instrumentation includes a wide field CCD camera with an atmospheric dispersion corrector and a multiple object spectrograph which uses optical fibers to obtain spectra of up to 100 objects simultaneously over a one-degree field.  The active optics of the WIYN telescope system delivers excellent image quality and it is not unusual to obtain 0.5" images on good nights.

The newer Morgan Monroe Station (MMS) of the Goethe Link Observatories is situated in the Morgan-Monroe State Forest about 12 miles north of campus and is rather protected from light pollution.  The MMS site houses a 16-inch automated telescope known as RoboScope and a new 50-inch automated telescope known as SpectraBot.  These are active research facilities that operate most clear nights.

Teaching facilities include the historic Kirkwood 12-inch refracting telescope on campus and a solar telescope that is housed in the same building, to view sunspots and prominences. Teaching facilities also include two telescopes located on the roof of Swain West.

The Goethe Link Observatories (named for Dr. Goethe Link) of Indiana University consist of two off-campus sites.  The original Goethe Link site near Mooresville Indiana houses a 36-inch reflector and a 10-inch astrographic camera.  This facility is operated jointly by the Astronomy Dept. and the Indiana Astronomical Society, an amateur astronomy group in the Indianapolis area.  Because of nearby urban lights the 36-inch telescope there is not currently used for research, but is available to Astronomy Dept. staff for projects that can tolerate a brighter night sky.

For more information on Kirkwood Observatory, Morgan-Monroe Observatory, and Goethe Link Observatory please call the Astronomy Department at (812) 855-6911.