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The Astronomy Technology group at HAA consist of close to 90 people at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria and the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in Penticton. Scott will describe the group, their expertise and facilities, and the exciting projects that they are involved in, including for the Square Kilometer Array, the Gemini Telescopes, and the Thirty Meter Telescope.
Scott Roberts has over 25 years’ experience developing instrumentation and observatories for Canadian research in astrophysics, including for the 3.6m Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, the 8m Gemini Telescopes, and the Thirty Meter Telescope. He is currently the Director of Astronomy Technology at the National Research Council Herzberg Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (NRC/HAA).
What is that big green Minecraft building on top of the hill? In 2016, NRC Victoria began construction on our latest building: a new, giant integration facility. “Why giant,” you may ask. With the construction of Extremely Large Telescopes comes extremely large instruments. NRC will build NFIRAOS, an Adaptive Optics system, for TMT, and it is too big to fit in any of our existing buildings. Jenny will give an overview of the building construction and what will be happening inside in the not so distant future.
Jenny Atwood joined NRC in 2006. She is the lead Optical Engineer for NFIRAOS (nefarious) and the IRIS On-Instrument Wavefront Sensor, both of which are TMT instruments. She has contributed to a number of other instrumentation projects, and is currently the Project Manager and Optical Engineer for the GIRMOS Imager, which will be installed on Gemini North. In addition to her engineering roles, Jenny also manages the latest Integration Facility at NRC.