The Astronomy Department at Indiana University maintains a machine shop, an electronics shop, and two well-equipped optics labs to support the design and construction of instrumentation for astronomy and for high-energy astrophysics.

• Mufson and students develop equipment for use with the MINOS and NOvA experiments at Fermilab, and are developing a calibration system for the SNAP collaboration at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.

• Pilachowski is building fiber-fed, high dispersion echelle spectrographs (see FHiRE) for use at the 3.5-m WIYN telescope and at the new SpectraBot robotic 1.25-m telescope in the nearby Morgan-Monroe State Forest.

• Honeycutt and students collaborated with the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO) to build a CCD Imager System for the WIYN telescope. Telescope and observatory automation have also been an important part of the instrumentation activities at Indiana, resulting in both the RoboScope and SpectraBot telescopes. Astronomical spectrographs have been designed and constructed by Honeycutt for use at WIYN, at the U.S. Naval Observatory, and on SpectraBot.

Publications

• Stuart Mufson

• Caty Pilachowski

• Kent Honeycutt