Boston University receives $500,000 grant to develop new IR imaging instrument

The Los Angeles-based W.M. Keck Foundation, one of the nation's largest philanthropic organizations interested in engineering, science, and medical advancement, recently awarded Boston University's astronomy department a $500,000 grant to develop Mimir, a powerful, state-of-the-art, wide-field imaging spectrometer and polarimeter.

When completed in the spring of 2002, Mimir will enable university researchers, under a partnership with the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, to undertake large, infrared surveys of magnetic fields in space. These surveys will shed new light on the most important of all galactic events – the formation of stars.

“With the Keck Foundation award, the Mimir instrument on the Perkins telescope will be a superb combination for taking wide-field, panoramic infrared images,” says Dan Clemens, associate professor of astronomy at Boston University and principal investigator on the Mimir project.

Spectroscopy is the measurement of the wavelength and intensity of the absorption of infrared light by sampling the various colors that are collected by telescopes like Mimir. Spectrometers can determine the composition of samples based on this absorption.

Designed for use on the Lowell Observatory's 72" Perkins telescope, Mimir will be made available to scientists at both Boston University and the Observatory nightly, with researchers from both locations taking turns using the instrument every other night over the next five years. Together, the Perkins telescope and Mimir will form the world's newest and best system for conducting large surveys of magnetic fields in space and for collecting light.

“This wide-field capability will make Mimir uniquely suited to provide the large-scale context needed to understand how and where stars form in out Milky Way galaxy,” says Clemens.