Expertise in instrumentation

MQAAAstro’s expertise in instrumentation has been making headlines with the centre’s researchers involved in international and national collaborations to build the next-generation telescopes.

Dr Christian Schwab has developed the optical design for NASA’s new flagship exoplanet-finding spectrograph, NEID, a $10 million, cutting-edge instrument used to detect planets orbiting stars outside our solar system.

“I am delighted to lead the optical work for this exciting and truly international collaboration, which will see my design come to life on a large scale. This is a ground-breaking facility, and the precision it delivers will pave the way for us to discover rocky, earth-like planets orbiting stars outside our own solar system,” Dr Schwab says.

The Huntsman Telephoto Array is an innovative astronomical imaging system that makes use of a large array of Canon telephoto camera lenses. Normally used for sports and wildlife photography, this lens array has distinct advantages over conventional telescopes for imaging faint and spatially extended stellar structures in nearby galaxies. It is the precursor for a Macquarie-led space-based cubesat facility, the Australian Space Eye.

Principal Investigator Dr Lee Spitler leads an extensive technical and science team on the Huntsman Telephoto Array collaboration, which pulls together astrophysics and instrumentation experts from institutions across Australia and France.
Follow this link for more details about Huntsman.