Interview_Nichol

INTER ACTIONS 1997

Robert Nichol: Robotic Telescope Brings the Skies
to his Desktop

A fundamental question facing cosmology is: How did the rich, complicated structure we see locally form and evolve from the earlier smooth, hot Big Bang? Observations of the universe play a crucial role in answering this question.

Robert Nichol, who like Richard Griffiths hails from Wales, explores the origins of the universe by performing remote astronomical observations using a robotic telescope in New Mexico.

"I observe once or twice a month using the Internet and a computer (Mac) in my office," Nichol says. "My part in this endeavor is the study of cluster of galaxies as a function of cosmological look-back in time. Present technology allows us to reach back to approximately half the age of the universe."

Meanwhile, Nichol eagerly looks forward to the completion of the next generation of cosmological observatories. New 8-meter optical telescopes, upgrades to the Hubble Space Telescope, and new x-ray and microwave satellites will allow astrophysicists like him to extend this work to even earlier epochs in the universe.

Complementing these efforts will be the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which will comprehensively map the local universe. Nichol is an active member of the SDSS, which will start taking in data this year. The goal of the SDSS is to produce a detailed digital photometric map of half of the northern sky to the 23rd magnitude.

The large-scale structure of galaxies. Scatter plot of 62295 galaxies out to a median redshift of z=0.1.

Nichol describes SDSS as the "next generation of surveys" and says it is the "biggest, most ambitious project in ground-based survey astronomy" to date. By using a new imaging technology called a charged-coupled device, invented by Bell Labs, SDSS will be able to chart the skies at a rate 100 times faster than the old photo plate process.

"We're expecting 100 million objects in our database. The scientific value of such a data set is tremendous," Nichol says. "Applications of the information can range from critical investigations of large-scale structures in 3D to the relationships of galaxies with their environment, to the faint-end luminosity functions of disk dwarf stars."

The survey is being done by researchers from many institutions, including Fermilab, the University of Washington, Johns Hopkins, Princeton and the University of Chicago, where Nichol was before coming to Carnegie Mellon. Nichol says that copies of the Sloan data will reside at Carnegie Mellon and be available to students.

Nichol is eager to share his excitement with Carnegie Mellon students. "I had originally planned to go into film directing but ended up in physics instead. A professor took me observing and I loved every minute of it. I'm eager to share this experience with Carnegie Mellon students."

"I plan to construct large, objective catalogues of clusters from this database, which will then require detailed observational follow-up using next generation telescopes. My students and I will travel to international telescope facilities in Hawaii, Chile and Australia to carry out our observations."

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescope at Apache Point.

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