The Astronomy Department has aggressively established a new optical, infrared and radio instrumentation lab with a charter to train future instrument builders and to develop cutting edge instrumentation for current and future telescopes. Generous support for the lab has come from a gift from the Celerity Foundation of Frank and Wynette Levinson, and from the University of Virginia. The optical and infrared group is led by Professor Michael Skrutskie and the radio group is led by Dr. Rich Bradley, NRAO.

Find more information about our current projects by following the links at the right.

What's New
Orion February 2007 -- The "FanCam'' near-IR camera for the Fan Mountain 31-inch telescope continues into its third year of observations. FanCam is searching for IR supernovae, observing open clusters in support of a Spitzer Space Telescope observing program, and providing supporting observations of small Jovian satellites in support of the New Horizons Pluto mission Jupiter encounter in late February 2007. Fan Mountain Camera
March 2008 --The UVa copy of TripleSpec was succesfully installed and tested at Apache Point Observatory. First light science demonstration observations ranging from Solar System to extragalactic targets are in hand.
January 2006 -- CorMASS is now at home at Apache Point Observatory (APO) on the 3.5-meter telescope there. With the installation of TripleSpec, CorMASS will be heading back to Charlottesville to serve as a testbed for extended-wavelength InGaAs array work.
June 2007 -- The NSF ATI program has funded the development of the LBT Fizeau mid-infrared imager, LMIRcam.
Spring 2007 -- InGaAs detector array testing continues through a collaboration with Goodrich Corp./Sensors Unlimited and funded by an NSF grant. After successful production of low dark current extended-wavelength detector material, fabrication of an "astronomical" prototype array has succeeded. CorMASS will soon provide the testbed for this device.
September 2006 -- Graduate student Ori Fox (right) has received a NASA GSRP fellowship and will work at Goddard Space Flight Center this semester testing detectors for the NIRSpec instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope.
February 2007 -- Design and definition work has begun on the APOGEE project. The laboratory will have responsibility for designing and fabricating the multi-fiber H-band (1.6um) high-resolution (R=20000) spectrograph that will be used to probe the chemical evolution history of the Milky Way at the SDSS 2.5-meter telescope at Apache Point Observatory. APOGEE is one of four projects being developed for the "After-Sloan II" suite of projects that will occupy the 2.5-meter through approximately 2013.



This plot places current instrument projects in the context of both wavelength coverage in the electromagnetic spectrum and the size of telescope.
InstrumentDiagram

CorMASS is currently in operation at Apache Point Observatory, and the FOBOS was commissioned in the spring of 2004. The NIR Camera, "Fan Cam," for the Fan Mountain 31-inch telescope funded by NSF achieved first light on the telescope in late December 2004 and TripleSpec is in the fabrication phase. Learn more about these projects and others by following the links to the right.


Personnel

Faculty, scientists and staff involved in instrumentation include:

Graduate students working on instrumentation :


Laboratory Space



Our lab is located in the west wing ground floor portion of the Astronomy Building. Previously unfinished space at the foundation level, we now have four experimentation rooms and two common area for instrument development and research. Some pictures of the completed space are below.