Research

Gone are the days when astronomers would sit at the eyepiece of a hand-made telescope and draw sketches of what they saw.

Today’s large glass and steel structures are motorized and computerized.

The differences run deeper: instead of relying on a person’s subjective eyesight, modern facilities use state-of-the-art electronics to accurately analyze the incoming light.

This is exactly the kind of equipment researchers at the Dunlap Institute will create — inventing, designing and testing instruments and detectors to be hooked onto the upcoming large telescopes.

But our researchers also work on the science that their instruments reveal.

And this science is all about births: from understanding how planets and solar systems form, to how the whole universe started.