The Michigan-Dartmouth-MIT Observatory

Since 1975, the University of Michigan, Dartmouth College, and MIT have jointly operated the MDM Observatory (formerly called the McGraw-Hill Observatory), which is located near Tucson, Arizona, on the southwest ridge of Kitt Peak at an altitude of 1920 meters.

The Observatory operates 1.3 m and 2.4 m telescopes, equipped with a wide variety of detectors. The primary and secondary mirrors of the 2.4 m Hiltner telescope were refigured during academic year 1990-91. A thermal control system was installed in 1992 which keeps the mirror one or two degrees below the expected nighttime ambient temperature when the mirror cover is closed. A new control system for the airbag support system was installed in 1993. The telescope is now routinely delivering subarcsecond images, with median seeing in the neighborhood of 0.9 arcseconds.

Work has been completed on the construction of a versatile ``modular'' spectrograph for the Hiltner telescope; it is now in routine operation. Two new cameras were completed in 1991 and 1992 incorporating Loral 2048 2048 and Tek 1024 1024 CCDs; a third is presently under construction. An echelle spectrograph, on loan from the University of Wisconsin, is now being used on the Hiltner telescope. A 256 256 HgCdTe infrared camera was made available during 1993 in cooperation with astronomers from the University of Massachusetts. Sparc 2 computers were installed at the Hiltner and the 1.3 m McGraw-Hill telescopes.

Current research being carried out by astronomers and students from the three institutions includes optical investigations of the solar system, studies of compact stars in binary systems, planetary nebulae, supernova remnants, gravitational lenses, quasars and other active galactic nuclei, the identification of cosmic X-ray and radio sources, studies of the motions and distributions of galactic matter, and studies of large scale motions and structure in the universe.