Professor refurbishes telescope to investigate stellar mysteries
Since 1971, the telescope in FitzRandolph Observatory has seen little use. The equipment simply gathered dust, used by only the occasional amateur stargazer.But beginning last summer, a team of University students and faculty headed up by physics professor David Wilkinson began a massive effort to change the dilapidated telescope into a state-of-the-art instrument that could help bring mankind one step closer to contact with extraterrestrial life.Wilkinson's project was prompted by an experiment coordinated by Harvard University professor Paul Horowitz to detect and catalog unexplained polarized light pulses observed in the night sky.Horowitz and Wilkinson had first met years before when Horowitz was still a graduate student at Harvard.