The Dunlap Institute and the future of telescopes

Combine a gift from the Dunlap family with Canada's involvement in the next generation of large telescopes, and you have a recipe for success.

Whether it is for telescopes on the ground (Atacama Large Millimeter Array, Thirty Meter Telescope) or in space (James Webb Space Telescope), the Dunlap Institute will be there, involved in the design of equipment and in the observations.

Professor James R. Graham, director of the Dunlap Institute gives us a glimpse of the next five years, including the hire of four new professors and a corresponding number of post-docs — an exceptional growth!

In May 2011, the whole DI crew took two full days to brainstorm new projects and directions for our Public Outreach program.

We also invited all astronomers at UofT who had an interest in Public Outreach.

We invited five special guests from other scientific institutions that do Public Outreach or evaluate the effect of Education Initiatives in Canada or in the US, and listened to their guidance and feedback.

The result of this workshop will be seen in the new projects we implement in the coming year(s)... stay tuned for more details!

In this video, Professor Peter Martin recounts the decision to sell the observatory and finance a new unit within UofT from this sale: the Dunlap Institute.

This allowed to turn the original gift from the Dunlap family into an entity that could see through the 21st century — and beyond — without risk of losing its preeminent role in research.

The Institute carries on with the dual mandate of the observatory:

A few decades later, the farmland around Richmond Hill turned into suburbs, and light pollution had become an issue. Gradually, the faculty moved from the observatory to the downtown UofT campus.

In this video, Professor Emeritus John Percy explains how researchers still carried out breakthrough observations at the David Dunlap Observatory during that period.