Hobby-Eberly Telescope
The Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) is the world’s fourth largest optical telescope. The telescope is a collaboration between Penn State and the University of Texas at Austin, Stanford University, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen, and Goerg-August-Universitaet Goettingen. Penn State has played a leading role in the development of HET with Larry Ramsey acting as the Project Scientist for HET and the Principal Investigator for one of its three spectrographs. HET is located at McDonald Observatory in west Texas and was dedicated in September 1997. Penn State’s share of this unique telescope is 27% and all members of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics (faculty, postdocs, and students) have equal access to it. The HET will soon complete a major upgrade, including upgrades to the High Resolution Spectrograph used for Doppler planet surveys of sun-like stars. Penn State professors Suvrath Mahadevan and Larey Ramsey are leading the development of the Habitable Zone Planet Finder, a new instrument that will enable high-precision Doppler planet surveys using infrared light to target low mass stars.
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