Grants will help build mirrors for telescope

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope project, a collaboration of UCI researchers at its Center for Cosmology and 22 other institutions, has received two grants totaling $30 million, UCI officials announced Thursday.

A $20 million gift from the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences and $10 million from Bill Gates allows for the telescope’s three large mirrors to be built. The 8.4-meter telescope will hold the largest (32 billion-pixel) digital camera ever built.

UCI scientist David Kirkby is contributing to work on the camera and oversees the university’s contribution to the project. Many university researchers are eager to use the telescope’s data in their research, said physics and astronomy professor Betsy Barton. The telescope will provide time-lapse imaging of the universe.

The gift comes on the heels of $200 million given to UCI researchers from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for a larger-aperture telescope.

— Joseph Serna