A Tour of MDM Observatory on Kitt Peak

Jules Halpern - March 1, 2016

Turn Left After the 10 Mile Marker

"When you Come to a Fork in the Road, Take it."

If You Are Here, You've Gone Too Far: This is KPNO

View of MDM Observatory Looking Southwest

Looking Northeast with KPNO in Background

Current MDM Membership

On-Site Technical Staff - But Only During the Day

Eric Galayda (Site Manager) ------- Paul Hartmann (Tech)

Tony Negrete (Tech)

McGraw-Hill Observatory - Est. 1974

McGraw-Hill 1.3m Telescope circa 1998

Getting Cloudy at Sunset

1.3m Telescope

1.3m Telescope Control Room circa 1998

Allyson Sheffield in Mirror Image - January 2011

Looking Outside

2.4m Hiltner Telescope - Est. 1984

2.4m Lounge at Sunrise

You Can Eat Here, Too

2.4m Hiltner Telescope

2.4m Telescope Control Room

Undergraduate Observing Class

One Observer with Large Coffee

Spectrograph Slit, Guide Star Monitor, Emergency Procedures

View From "the Bridge"

Instrumentation

Modspec on the 2.4m

All Settings are Manual

2.4m RETROCAM (Retractable Optical Camera)

Inside, Looking Up the Optical Path

Outside, RETROCAM on the Side of the Telescope

2.4m OSMOS (Ohio State Multi-Object Spectrograph)

All Settings are Computer Controlled

Image of Something Big (M51)

Spectrum of Something Far

Is MDM Time Oversubscribed?

	2.4m	1.3m
Dark Time	Yes	No
Bright Time	No	No

How Do I Get Time? Click on a Photo.

Stephanie Douglas	Adrian Price-Whelan	David Schiminovich

When Do I Propose?

October 30

April 30

My Research - Transient and Variable

Gamma-ray Burst Afterglows

Identification of X-ray/Gamma-ray Sources

Transitional Millisecond Pulsars

Last Modified: February 22, 2016	jules@astro.columbia.edu