Klaus Honscheid, professor of physics, led a team that developed the software to run a powerful new camera designed to answer one of the biggest mysteries in physics. The Dark Energy Camera (DECam), located on a mountaintop in Chile, took its first photos of the night sky this week. The camera will help researchers involved in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) to explore why the expansion of the universe is speeding up. Honscheid's team also designed a web-based user interface allowing astronomers to operate DECam from around the world, along with the instrument control system that monitors and records every operating parameter of the camera.

The most powerful sky-scanning camera yet built has begun its quest to pin down the mysterious stuff that makes up nearly three-quarters of our Universe.
Read more about DES and its first light:

Dark Energy Camera Snaps First Images Ahead of Survey (BBC)
Dark Energy Telescope Snaps First Cosmic Photos (CBS)
Dark Energy Camera Sees First Light (Discovery News)
Dark Energy Camera, New Mega-Eye on the Sky, Probes Ancient Mystery (Los Angeles Times)
Astrophysicists Get First Images for Dark Energy Camera (R&D)
Dark Matter Survey Camera: Looking Through the Lens (Marketplace Tech Report)