Observatory to Expand Facilities for Research

The College observatory will enlarge its research and teaching facilities within the next year, Donald M. Menzel, Director of the observatory, announced last night.

Included in the expansion will be the construction of a 60-foot, $132,000 radio telescope at the George B. Agassiz Station of the observatory at Harvard, Mass., and the appointment of a radio-astronomer to coordinate research at the Station. The duties of the new radio-astronomer will begin on July 1, although his name has not yet been announced.

The College observatory at 60 Garden Street will continue as a classroom building and a center for discussion and correlation of astronomical data.

The announcement of the planned expansion followed receipt by the University of a grant from the National Science Foundation for the construction of the new telescope.

Expect Telescope Within Year

"Within a year we expect to have the new telescope," Bart J. Bok, Robert W. Wilson Professor of Applied Astronomy, said last night. "We have already broken ground and will get the final contract soon," he continued.

"The new 60-foot radio telescope," he added, "Will enable us to pin-point more accurately sources of radio energy and to accommodate special experimental projects not now possible."

"With a first-rate radio telescope only 25 miles from Cambridge, we will be able to expand our entire observatory activity," Menzel said. "We will be able to increase the numbers both of our students and staff members," he added.

By plotting radiation's from neutral atoms, a radio telescope can overcome the limitations of optical telescopes which cannot penetrate the water vapor and cosmic dust clouds in the earth's atmosphere.

Present Telescope Lacks Power

The Agassiz Station at present has a radio telescope with a 24-foot parabolic antenna, which "serves admirably for a preliminary survey of the Milky Way, but lacks the power needed for detailed research," Bok said.

"But the radio telescope," Bok continued, "does not supplant the optical telescope."