. . . but only if we sign up to the European Southern Observatory. Thegroup's director explains the benefits to Dick Ahlstrom
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is one of the world's leading astronomical research centres. Membership gives access not only to advanced research but also to commercial involvement, given its €100 million annual budget.
A study by researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, advised the Government to join the observatory. Despite this, we have yet to sign on the dotted line to become part of this international venture.
The observatory's director, Prof Catherine Cesarsky, was in Dublin recently as a guest of the Royal Irish Academy, where she gave a talk about the role of the observatory and its importance for European astronomy.
The academy took the opportunity to introduce Prof Cesarsky to an official at the Office of Science and Technology, part of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and to leading astronomy researchers here.
"We are not desperately trying to get new members," she said after meeting the official. "I just told him the facts. I am bringing information."
Even so, she acknowledged that she would very much like to see the Republic join the observatory and benefit from its involvement.
The observatory has some of the best instruments in the world, facilities whose use would put Irish researchers on a par with top astronomers anywhere.
Members also have an opportunity to share in its massive annual budget when it comes to buying equipment, software, computer services and building infrastructure.
There is a cost: in Ireland's case a signing-up fee of about €5 million and a membership fee of about €1 million a year. This can't be paid in kind, but there are ways of structuring membership so that the fees flow back to the country as a way to improve local research activity.
The costs are also balanced by preferential access to the observatory's development contracts.
The organisation, of which 10 countries are currently members, has its headquarters in Garching, near the southern German city of Munich; its observatories are in Chile.
"ESO was created 40 years ago, after discussions that lasted 10 years," says Prof Cesarsky. "Many astronomers in Europe realised that they were losing ground and decided to form ESO to compete with the Americans."
It was formed in 1962, but it wasn't until 1976 that its first instrument was in place. "Certainly at that time we could not say ESO had won the race."
The Europeans began to develop new optics and image-enhancement software to improve the quality of data captured by its telescopes.
It decided in 1987 to build the Very Large Telescope (VLT), four eight- metre telescopes that could be used in concert to capture deep-space images.
The first came on stream in 1998, and by 2000 all four were working. Soon after, they were providing the best results of any instrument in the world. They are so powerful that, together, they would be able to pick out a person standing on the moon, says Prof Cesarsky.
"Now, with the VLT, Europe has what it wanted 50 years ago: the best observatory in the world."
ESO isn't resting on its laurels. It has begun building the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, a huge network of 64 radio dishes in the Chilean desert that will study star formation in deep space.
It is also planning a challenging new telescope, aptly known as Owl, which will have a mirror up to 100 metres across, assembled in two-metre segments.
"We have studied it for quite a while, and we think we know how to do it," says Prof Cesarsky. "It needs very advanced adaptive optics."
The question for astronomers here is when they will be able to participate in these exciting developments. A decision has yet to come from the Government.