Pine Mu scientists
study the heavens
“The University has recently announced tentative plans for the
construction of an observatory to be located on Pine Mountain, east of
Bend.
“The observatory would feature the installation of a 24-inch
reflector telescope, with a radio-telephone link from the mountain to
the computer facilities on the University campus, to provide almost
immediate analysis of data.
“The Pine Mountain telescope would be the largest in the Pacific
Northwest.
“For the past three years, E.G. Ebbighausen, professor of physics
and astronomy at the University, has operated a small observatory
near Sisters, using a 15-inch telescope. He has spent the last three
summers observing the heavens, and recording and analyzing his
observations.
“His work has resulted in the publication of several papers which
are significant contributions to research in astronomy. But now, to
develop further research in this field, a larger, more modern telescope
is needed. Pine Mountain offers an ideal site forthe planned facilities.”
So read a 1967 news article. Later that year, the Pine Mountain
observatory was dedicated. Five years later, the observatory is still
operating in many astronomical areas. The observatory has received
several federal grants and has added several pieces of new equip
ment.
Equipment such as a new infrared detector, for example, whidflfc
allows the observatory to take the temperature of star dust in the skj^
Ira Nolt and James Radostitz, research associates in physics
working with Russell Donnelly, professor of physics, designed and
built it.
The building of this detector is a breakthrough in the new field of
infrared astronomy, according to Nolt. It is the smallest, most self
contained instrument of its kind and attains the lowest temperature of
any detector in the world.
Infrared radiation consists of heat waves, he explains. The
supersensitive thermometer used to detect and measure this heat is a
chip of a metalloid element called germanium.
But before the germanium will work as a thermometer of infrared
radiation, it must be cooled to a temperature extremely near absolute
zero.
The trick in developing an infrared detector was to make one that
housed not only the thermometer, but also all the pumps and fuel
needed to cool the germanium all the way down to .3 degrees Kelvin,
points out Nolt.
The scientists were able to build a detector that is only 6 inches in
diameter and 22 inches high, weighs 22 pounds, and can be attached
easily (with milk pipe clamps) to the 24-inch telescope at Pine
Mountain
"Just four years ago, the world’s first infrared detector was built,
it was big as a table and impractical to use with a telescope," recalls
Nolt
The achievement is the result of several years’ work, including
some by Nolt before he came to the University in 1971.
When the detector was almost, but not quite finished, the team
received an invitation to try it out in an experiment aboard a jet
about to take a few other scientists on high altitude flights. Radostitz
worked steadily on the detector for 21 days, completing it just in time
to do the experiment. “1 didn't sleep at all the last four days,” con
fesses Radostitz.
The reason high altitude flights are so desirable for experiments
in infrared radiation is that the water vapor in the earth's atmosphere
absorbs so much of this type of radiation, according to Nolt.
He notes that Pine Mt., at 6,034 feet, is high enough to be above
some of that atmospheric inter!erence.
This summer. Nolt, Radostitz, and t University junior, Dan
Ulster, are using the infrared detector to look at very early stars in the
process of formation