SC State astronomers Dr. Jennifer Cash and Dr. Donald Walter have been awarded observing time and funding to use NASA's Kepler Observatory. They and colleague Dr. Steve Howell of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Arizona were among 27 new teams of scientists selected in a national competition to use the telescope over a period of twelve months beginning in June 2010.
Kepler, one of NASA's newest observatories, was launched in March of 2009. The telescope is located in orbit millions of miles from the Earth, so all observations made are submitted remotely to the observatory. Once the data is collected by Kepler it is radioed back to a ground station on Earth.
Cash, Howell and Walter will use Kepler data as part of a long-term study of RV Tauri type stars and Semi-Regular variables. These stars are near the end of their life and are becoming unstable. Their light output varies over a period of a few months as the outer edge of the star expands and contracts.
NASA is funding this research using Kepler data, but the three astronomers are also funded by NSF to study these variables using ground-based observations under the 5-year SC State project known as "A Partnership in Observational and Computational Astronomy (POCA)".
July 13-15, 2010
South Carolina State University & Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College
Orangeburg, SC
For more information go here.
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May-August 2010
A total of six students are participating in this summer's internship program in astronomy funded by the NSF PAARE program awarded to SC State. Four of the students are Tier I (Beginning) researchers and two are Tier II (Experienced) researchers. More
Left: Edwin Mainia (left) and Bryan Pugh (right) look on as Dr. Cash (center) demonstrates how to fit light curves to AAVSO data.
May 18-22, 2010
Kitt Peak National Observatory, Tucson, AZ
PI Walter conducted a five-night observing run on the Coude Feed Telescope. Observation results.
Walter had five nights of good weather and excellent skies. He was able to acquire spectra in the blue (3700-5100 angstroms) and red (6400-9000 angstroms) of nearly 30 stars; including RV Tauri types and Semiregular variables.
Photograph of the Coudé Feed Telescope by Dr. Walter. Open this link for additional photographs.
Physics majors at SCSU acquire the background to pursue graduate studies or a number of career options including medical physics, astrophysics, electrical engineering, computer systems engineering, materials science, and technical business management. Courses in nuclear engineering combined with a physics degree can lead to careers in fields such as environmental science, reactor engineering, and nuclear medicine.
POCA, funded under an National Science Foundation Program: Partnerships in Astronomy and Astrophysics Research and Education (PAARE), represents a partnerships between South Carolina State University, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory and Clemson University. The mission of POCA is to develop an effective, long-term partnership that combines the strengths of the three institutions to increase the scientific and educational output of all the partners with special emphasis on enhancing diversity in the field of astronomy.
The mission of MUCESS is to increase minority participation in the Earth and space sciences. This includes faculty and student research, K-16 education and public outreach.
SCSU is a charter members of the RCT Consortium which has taken over management of the 1.3-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, approximately 50 miles west of Tucson, Arizona. The telescope is currently being refurbished in order to make it robotic. When fully operational, the telescope will be capable of observing in any one of three modes, manually on-site, remotely in real time over the Internet, or robotically without human intervention.
From August 1995 through February 2009, NASA funded research, educational and public outreach programs at SCSU. This link will open a collection of web pages describing these programs.
Cosmology is the scientific study of how the universe began and evolved, and the people who do this work are called cosmologists.
