Twenty-four hours, door-to-door. That's been a frequent commute during the past five years for Professor of Astronomy Robert P. Kirshner '70 as he attempts to obtain a world-class research telescope in Chile for Harvard's use.

Kirshner, who is chair of the Astronomy Department, has been trying to raise money to purchase a 20 percent share in the twin 6.5-meter Magellan telescopes being built at The Carnegie Foundation's Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.

Currently Harvard does not own a research telescope, Kirshner says, so members of the astronomy department cannot reserve as much time on major telescopes as they need. The new twin telescopes, the first of which is scheduled to be functional in 1998, should give researchers the data to help map the distribution of galaxies and look at the evolution of the Universe.

The University will not fund the project directly, but the administration has given Kirshner permission to seek donors to raise the $13.7 million. The money will give Harvard a one-fifth share in the Magellan project, collaborating with the University of Arizona, MIT and the University of Michigan.

The Telescope

Right now, all that sits on the Magellan site 8,000 feet high in the arid mountains of Chile are a couple of foundations and one pod-shaped skeleton.

But when the telescope is completed, it will be one of the most useful astronomical instruments in the world, according to Kirshner. He says the first mirror is cast and ready to be ground and polished at the University of Arizona.

Only a few observatories have mirrors over 6.5 meters, and Magellan's inclusion of two identical mirrors enhances its field of view, resolving power and total viewing time. Presently, the largest observatory in the world is the 10-meter Keck twin telescopes on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

Kirshner says that despite the publicity surrounding the success of the Hubble Space Telescope, ground-based instruments still have several advantages.

"For one, [the Magellan] is five times bigger than the Hubble so it will have a much larger field of view," Kirshner says. "Plus there are certain wavelengths the Hubble can't detect."

He adds that the Magellan will be able to resolve galaxies four billion light-years away, effectively letting astronomers see the Universe that many years ago.

"The Universe used to be very smooth, and we're looking for when it started to clump up and become more irregular," Kirshner says.

The telescope might also lead to clues on the composition of the "dark matter," or the mysterious 90 percent of the Universe's mass that astronomers say remains unseen.

A 325-Year Celestial Tradition

In 1670 an astronomer from Harvard, then a tiny school in the wilderness of the New World, sent his observations of what would later be called Halley's comet to Isaac Newton. Newton used this data from Harvard in his Principia, beginning a long tradition of astronomical excellence at the New England school, including the attendance of Edwin Hubble, the most famous astronomer of the 20th century.