Not for long. Thanks to a new near infrared spectrometer that Elston himself designed, astronomers will soon be able to study up to one hundred galaxies in a single night. In one night we can do what would have taken a hundred nights to do traditionally. A spectrometer breaks up all the wavelengths of the infrared and spreads them out on the infrared array which detects the light, allowing astronomers to conduct various analyses. Using lasers, astronomers can punch holes into a small metal plate that fits inside Elston's spectrometer.
Advanced technology comes at a price, however.
6.5-m telescope about getting it on their telescopes for a substantial amount of time. 40 observation nights a year, and they will let outside groups use it for a total of 80 additional nights. Elston's long-term goal is to make headway into the mysteries of galaxy formation and galaxy clustering effects. They either formed all at once in the collapse of a big gas cloud, or they could have formed from pieces of little clouds coming together slowly over time. These are two very different pictures, and we hope to be able to determine which is actually correct.