Facilities & Institutes

Submitted by ewmerth on Mon, 02/11/2008 - 12:18pm.

Institutes

External Facilities

View External Facilities in a larger map

Astronomy and Astrophysics Group

The department's Astronomy and Astrophysics Group also visit and utilize a range of national and international observatories.

Within Canada and the U.S. the facilities used are:

Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (DAO) in Victoria, BC, Canada
Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) in Penticton, BC, Canada
Mt. Laguna Observatory in San Diego, CA, U.S.
National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array (VLA) on the Plains of San Augustin, NM, U.S.
Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Kitt Peak, AZ, U.S.

The facilities used in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, U.S. are:

Internationally, the astronomy and astrophysics researchers use:

IRAM 30m Telescope in Pico Veleta, Spain
Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) in Llano Chajnantor, Chile
Atacama Millimeter Array (ALMA) also in Llano Chajnantor, Chile
Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) near La Serena, Chile
Las Campanas Observatory (UTSO) also near La Serena, Chile
European Souther Observatory (ESO) on La Silla, Chile
Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico
Australia Telescope National Facility in Narrabri, Australia
Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) in Zwiggelte, The Netherlands
Giant Meter Wave Radio Telescope in Pune, India

Moving even farther away, the department's researchers make use of:

Herschel Space Observatory located at the L2 lagrangian point on the far side of the Earth 1,500,000 km from Calgary
NASA's Rossi X-ray Explorer (RXTE)
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory
JAXA's Suzaku X-ray Observatory,
ESA's XMM Newton X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission Observer,
NASA's Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE)
ROSAT, Roentgen Satellite
Japan's ASCA X-ray Astronomy Mission satellite
Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics Group

Experimentalists in the Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics Group are involved in two of Canada's newest major atomic and molecular science installations, the Canadian Light Source (CLS) in Saskatoon, SK, Canada, and TRIUMF, Canada's National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Internationally, the facilities used by department members are CERN: the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland, the facilities at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, the Control Engineering Laboratory at the University of Oulu, Finland, and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasedena, CA, U.S.

Environmental Physics and Isotope Science Group

Researchers within the department's Environmental Physics and Isotope Science Group currently make use of the John de Laeter Centre for Isotope Research in Perth, Western Australia.

Space Physics Group

Members of the department's Space Physics Group use a number of national and international facilities including the Bristol Aerospace Ltd payload assembly and test facility in Winnipeg, MB, Canada, the CSA David Florida Laboratory (test facility) in Ottawa, ON, Canada, the Andoya Rocket Range in Andoya, Norway, the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences (ISAS) spacecraft assembly facility in Sagamihara, Japan, the Uchinoura Launch Facility, Kagoshima Space Center in Kagoshima, Japan, NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, VA, U.S., the NASA Poker Flat Research Range in Poker Flat, AK, U.S., Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar in Poker Flat, AK, U.S., and the Resolute Incoherent Scatter Radar in Resolute Bay, Nunavut, Canada.

Internal Facilities

Researchers in the Department of Physics and Astronomy have access to a wide range of modern instrumentation and research facilities. The bulk of the Department of Physics and Astronomy is located within the Science B Building on the Main Campus of the University of Calgary. This building contains:

Four, soon to be five, Quantum Optics Laboratories
Two Space Physics Laboratories
The Isotope Science Laboratory complex
It is also home to extensive computational facilities associated with Astrophysics, Quantum Optics, General Relativity, and Space Physics research.

Located less than a half hour walk from Science B, Medical Physics is housed within the Foothills Hospital complex. The Radiation Oncology Group is situated in the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, while the Magnetic Resonance Imaging Group is housed at the Seaman Family MR Research Centre.

Traveling further, the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory, operated by the department, is located in the foothills southeast of the city, near the town of Priddis, Alberta. The facilities at the RAO are mainly used for community programs and undergraduate research, but some faculty and graduate research is performed using the RAO facilities as well.

The Auroral Imaging Group within ISIS operates an array of ground based instrumentation accross Canada used to research the Aurora. Map images of the instrument locations for the current projects are below.