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July 5, 2002
Star gazer
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Joe Eitter spends his nights photographing distant galaxies. Photo by Bob
Elbert. |
by Skip Derra
Joe Eitter has spent many evenings alone, sitting in a sheet metal building
hoping the night will stay clear and dark. If it does, then Eitter, manager
of Iowa State's Erwin Fick Observatory, can get to work, accompanied by a
few tree frogs, birds and, quite possibly, Peter, Paul and Mary.
Cranking up his CD player (he has an on-site collection of about 300 CDs,
including those of the aforementioned group), Eitter will spend the evening
taking up to 50 images of galaxies far removed from our own. What he has
photographed with the 24-inch Mather telescope at Fick is spectacular.
Life and death
The images crisply show the life and death forms of galaxies. They also show
their structural intricacies and the colorful contortions galaxies go
through in their lifetimes. These images, taken by Eitter with a CCD
(charge-coupled device) camera bolted to the telescope are the featured
attractions of the physics and astronomy department's, "Splendor of the Iowa
Skies: The 2002 Fick Observatory Calendar."
And these images only scratch the surface of what Eitter (the only manager
the Fick Observatory has had) has compiled over the years. He has
photographed enough stellar nebula, white dwarfs and pinwheel galaxies to
fill many a photo album. By his own estimation, Eitter has taken more than
8,000 stellar and galactic images using generations of mechanical, then
electronic, and now digital telescope and computer hardware.
"Joe is a first-rate observational astronomer," said Steve Kawaler,
professor of astronomy. "Joe and the telescope have adapted to each other.
To get the same level of efficiency from the telescope without his
assistance, we would need to simplify the telescope's operation by upgrading
the software and hardware, making it more automated."
From telescope to lawnmower
Eitter also is a jack-of-all-trades at the observatory. He not only has to
make sure all mechanical systems are operating correctly, he keeps an eye on
the telescope's computer system, helps in designing and building electronic
gadgets and "packages" for the telescope, gives tours of the facility and
does the groundskeeping -- mowing in the summer and shoveling in the winter.
All in addition to chasing the stray tree frog out of the telescope bay
prior to an observation.
"This is something I really enjoy," Eitter said. "The hours are pretty
strange. But the nights go fairly fast when I'm observing."
Observatory takes shape
Eitter began his stewardship of Fick in 1969, a time when Nixon was
president, mini skirts were groovy and Midnight Cowboy won the Oscar for
best picture. He had just finished working at Iowa State's nuclear reactor
and completed a short stint as an instructor when former Iowa State physics
professor Willet Beavers' plans for an observatory began to take shape. The
observatory -- about 20 miles west of campus on 240th Street, southwest of
Boone -- is secluded but full of possibilities.
The observatory began with a skeleton of a telescope. "It was just a basic
telescope tube, with two secondary mirrors, when we got it," Eitter said.
"Everything else has pretty much been built here."
What has been added to the telescope is a radial velocity instrument, two
CCD cameras and an optical spectrometer, all the necessary hardware to make
professional-grade observations and images. The computer hardware and
software at the observatory have grown significantly since the days of bell
bottoms.
The big picture
Today, Eitter sits surrounded by a bank of electronic gadgets, monitoring
where the telescope is aimed and taking images from his control room chair.
This is far removed from the days of moving the telescope via knobs and
mechanical levers.
"The new system is computer-controlled and corrects for all of the
inaccuracies of pointing the telescope and for things like atmospheric
refraction and telescope misalignment," he said.
Once he gets an image, Eitter does a fair amount of "image conditioning." By
using color filters, Eitter explained, the intricate details of an image
begin to emerge.
"Using the CCD detector, we can see some of the objects" apparent in a
finished image, Eitter said. "But by the time you use two or three filters,
you have nine times the information."
For a truly faint object, tens of thousands to millions of light-years away,
Eitter estimates an image can take five to seven hours of work. Brighter
images take less time.
Dark times
In addition to his evening stellar observations, Eitter probably has
experienced more daytime darkness than most people can imagine. He has
witnessed six total solar eclipses, traveling the world to make measurements
of the Sun. He has traveled to Mexico, India, Africa and Indonesia, setting
instruments in the path of the total solar eclipse and making measurements
during the five minutes or less of near total darkness.
"The hours are pretty strange. But the nights go fairly fast when I'm
observing."
During an eclipse in India, the goal was to measure the velocity and amount
of dust surrounding the Sun with a smaller version of the radial velocity
instrument.
"Our equipment was held up in customs until just a day or so before the
India eclipse, so we didn't have enough time to make those measurements,"
Eitter said. "I had the advantage of actually being able to watch it rather
than run instruments."
Today, Eitter said he is looking for several new modifications and additions
to the telescope's capabilities. There is the chance that a newer, more
precise radial velocity package could be built and added for faculty member
Guillermo Gonzalez's research on detecting extra solar planets.
And there is a senior design project in electrical engineering "that could
lead to the possibility of controlling the telescope remotely over the
Internet," Eitter said. "We could operate the telescope from anywhere there
is a computer."
Which would effectively put an end to his quiet nights observing galaxies
with tree frogs and Peter, Paul and Mary.
To see images Eitter took for the "Splendor of the Iowa Skies" 2002
calendar, go to:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~sdk/fick.
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Ames, Iowa 50011, (515) 294-4111
Published by: University Relations,
online@iastate.edu
Copyright © 1995-2001, Iowa State University. All rights reserved.
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