Lucifer 1 is helping astronomers look deeper into the universe and get more detailed information about objects billions of light-years away.
"This instrument is special in the world right now," said Richard Green, director the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory. "There are instruments that do this on a small scale, but this is the biggest and most capable, and doesn't really have a competitor at the moment."
The Large Binocular Telescope has two 8.4-meter mirrors on one mount located on Mount Graham, near Safford.
By focusing the two mirrors on one object, the telescope can view extremely faint, distant objects equivalent to a telescope with an 11.8-meter mirror, larger than any telescope in the world. Alternately, the two can be used to select different groups of objects to collect twice as much information.
The Lucifer 1, dedicated to one of the two mirrors, allows astronomers to see near-infrared wavelengths that are crucial in gathering detailed data from objects in extremely distant galaxies, such as the chemical composition of objects or the speed at which they are moving.
This is especially important when studying very young galaxies and distant quasars, said R. Mark Wagner, instrumentation scientist and head of science operations at the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory.
While there are other telescopes capable of viewing near-infrared, the Lucifer 1 offers other capabilities that are wholly unique.
Infrared telescopes typically use masks that isolate a single pinpoint in the night sky to reduce infrared interference from other celestial objects. Before Lucifer 1, astronomers faced the time-consuming task of studying these distant objects one at a time.
Lucifer 1 is a "cryogenic jukebox" of customizable masks that allow astronomers to isolate up to 30 objects at one time.
The instrument is sealed in a vacuum chamber kept at minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit. The frigid environment reduces the background thermal heat produced by the instrument itself, providing more accurate data about the objects being studied.
Lucifer 1 was created and funded by German partners of the Large Binocular Telescope project. The instrument took 10 years to produce, and the team is now working to finish Lucifer 2, which will allow both mirrors to share the new capabilities.
The W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii also is working to build comparable instruments that Green said will be their closest competitor.
In the past weeks, UA astronomy professor Xiaohui Fan and his students have had the opportunity to work with the Lucifer 1 and recently submitted the first published data from the instrument in which they studied the physical properties of a galaxy 7 billion to 8 billion light-years away.
"It's certainly much better than anything I have ever used," Fan said. "For this kind of observation, Lucifer is the best in the world right now."
