Innovation Anthology #591:
Another astrophysicist working in the far infrared at the University of Lethbridge is Dr. Locke Spencer. He holds a Canada Research Chair.
With a large grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Dr. Spencer will now build an instrument to better read far infrared wavelengths from space.
It’s call a spectral spatial interferometer.
DR LOCKE SPENCER: Basically its a way to cheat and take better pictures than you could with a single camera by using interference. So the Herschel Space Telescope which I have worked on was a real breakthrough And the pictures that Herschel has gotten for us are amazing. But on the same token, the quality of image, the resolution. is about the same on the far infrared right now as Galileo’s telescope was in the visible 400 years ago. The instrument that I’m building, an interferometer, you have multiple telescopes that are working in parallel, and you combine the signal and it generates an interference pattern which you then do some analysis on to get a picture out of. That gets you a much bigger telescope than you have.
Dr. Spencer says it will take ten to twenty years before the interferometer is actually launched into space.
Hear the full interview with Locke Spencer at Innovation Anthology.com
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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University of Lethbridge
In 2007 The University of Lethbridge celebrated its 40th anniversary. The U of L campus is home to the world renowned Canadian Centre for Behavioral Neuroscience. The University is also a centre of expertise on water and remote sensing.
For more interviews with University of Lethbridge researchers, check out the website for Innovation Alberta. (2001-2008)
Program Date: 2014-02-04