Small Telescope for Astronomical Research and Teaching
PARI Education and Research Programs
J. D. Cline, M. W. Castelaz
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
Session 2.02 Monday, May 30, 2005. AAS 206th Meeting
Not-for-profit public foundation www.pari.edu
26m East Radio
Telescope
StarLab
Portable 8.2m diameter planetarium travels to grades K-8 schools
Duke Talent Identification
Program. Summer Field
Study in Astronomy
Education Programs
Grades K-8: StarLab
• Presentations to more than 32,000 students in Western North Carolina
• Six Learning Technologies, Inc
Programs offered
Introduction.
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute is a not-for-profit public foundation located on 200 acres in
Western North Carolina in the Pisgah National Forest. This poster presents premier programs. Frequent seminars for high school and undergraduate students, and periodic astronomical research collaborations complete programs at
PARI. See http://www.pari.edu/ for more information for access to PARI Observatories.
N
Radio Observatories
Research Programs
Pulsars.
Dr. David Moffett, Furman
University
• 327 MHz receiver installed on 26 East radio telescope.
• Timings of a dozen pulsars.
High School
• Duke TIP Summer Field Study in
Astronomy
• Senior Projects
NSF Funded Internships In
Public Science Education
Undergraduate Students
• NSF IPSE Interns in multimedia and physics developing a radio sky StarLab program
• UNC-Asheville Computer Science class developing remote radio telescope control and data analysis software
• Summer research students with funding from grants & donations as scholarships
26m West
26m East
Extreme Scattering Events (ESEs) and
Intra-Day Variables (IDVs).
PI:
Brian
Dennison, UNC-Asheville
• Long-term monitoring of interstellar turbulence via its effect on scattering of radio waves over a large sample of compact sources.
• Two element interferometer to reduce noise confusion and measure point sources.
• Two frequencies, 2.4 GHz and 8.4 GHz.
Graduate Students
Graduate Students
• PARI Observatories available for testbed applications, monitoring and survey research
0.10m
Polaris &
Transient
Future Plans
•
Pisgah Astronomical Research and Science Education Center (PARSEC):
Administered by UNC-Asheville for the benefit of each university within the 16-campus University of
North Carolina system to promote and coordinates usage of the facilities at PARI.
•
Small Telescope for Astronomical Research and Teaching (START):
Consortium of 6 universites and 2 community colleges to promote research and education using a 0.40m robotic telescope at PARI.
•
Space Science Lab:
Native American, Hispanic, African American, and underrepresented high school students in rural Western North Carolina will have the opportunity to conduct space science research through visible and radio observations of the Sun.
0.40m
START*
*Planned Consortium
0.25m
0.12m
Solar
0.35m
0.30m
Optical Observations of Binaries in
Old Open Clusters.
Dr. Mel Blake, PARI
• Measure period changes in pulsating stars to study their evolution
• Measure period changes in close binaries to measure effects of magnetic winds.
• Use the PARI 0.35m telescope and CCD
Optical Observatories
Radio
The 26m radio telescopes have new control systems and pointing models
Infrastructure
Optical
The optical telescopes are equipped with CCDs and
BVRI filters, and are under robotic control
Each feedbox has AC power, coax, 12 fibers and appropriate cabling as required by receiver configuration
Seeing average is 2 arcsec
Differential photometry average 3 nights/week
Lab and Offices
All labs, offices, telescopes linked via fiber optics and OC-48 network
Power backup across campus
