Instrumentation Commons^™

Eliminating Range Constraints For Optical Tracking Of Sub-10 Cm Orbital Debris, James Kirk

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

The growing population of orbital debris, including a significant amount of debris ranging from 1 to 10 cm, has substantially increased the risk to satellites. Due to the sheer number and high velocities, debris ranging from 1 to 10 cm still has the ability to cause mission-ending damage while remaining undetectable by ground-based detection facilities. This study utilizes the NASA Standard Satellite Breakup Model (NASA SSBM), combined with MATLAB, to propagate debris clouds over extended durations, enabling the identification of high-detection zones and debris rings. Using the modeled spacecraft environment, a satellite was positioned below the debris ring altitudes. Lowering …

M.O.D.U.S. Modular Optical Design Using Specular Film, Mario Gutierrez, Robert Thibodeau, Emma Show, Desiree Robinson, Lingyuan Meng, Sean Martin, Conner Beeson

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

High-quality parabolic mirrors, which are vital components in reflecting telescopes, are typically bulky, costly, and highly fragile. This experiment explores the feasibility of using specular Class B Mylar as an unconventional, lightweight, and cost-effective alternative. This approach could enable new telescope designs by greatly reducing weight and manufacturing expenses, while also opening options for potential adaptability.   This approach involves using Mylar, a flexible, reflective style of plastic. The mylar is formed into a concave mirror by stretching a sheet over a chamber and depressurizing one side to force the sheet into the necessary curved shape. Multiple designs are being created …

Construction Of A Radio Jove Telescope For Low-Frequency Radio Astronomy Observations, Lola G. Torres, Elizabeth Loughry, Raaid Baloch, Benjamin Fisher, Gannon English, Poorvaja Panneerselvan, Andrew Wright, Braedyn Hodges

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Radio JOVE, a NASA-supported citizen science project, provides a framework for studying planetary magnetospheres and solar activity through radio observations. The primary goal of this project is to construct a Radio JOVE telescope system to enable undergraduate observation and analysis of low-frequency radio emissions from Jupiter and the Sun. The antenna system will be constructed considering real-world effects to ensure accurate signal detection. The resulting system will generate radio spectrograms that capture time-dependent signal intensity, identifying any Jovian radio bursts and solar radio emissions. These observations will be used to investigate plasma interactions, and space weather relations associated with both …

Broad Emission-Line Limits On Stellar Winds From Small-Aperture Dslr Spectroscopy, Benjamin Katz, David Cardona

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Broad Emission-Line Limits on Stellar Winds from Small-Aperture DSLR Spectroscopy   Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars have very strong stellar winds, with speeds of thousands of km/s, usually measured using high-resolution spectroscopy on large telescopes. Here, we test how well those speeds can be recovered using small-aperture, low-resolution DSLR spectroscopy. We used an 8-inch Celestron 8SE with an SA-100 grating and a Nikon D750 DSLR, giving a dispersion of about 4.1 Å per pixel. A key limitation is the instrumental resolution of the system, with an FWHM of about 30 Å, which is not small compared to the emission line widths being measured. …

Project G.L.E.N., Alexis Peshehonoff, Makaylei Huggins, Bernard Muich, William John, Nicholas Fazzolari, Kai Hong, Nicholas Krasznavolgyi, Caitlyn A. Gabrinowitz, Grace Forbes, Harris Meyer, Jakob Graudons, Georgii Dubrov, Aditya Bhattacharya, Augustine Balish, Zachary Ort, Stephen Syvertson, Sajid Berhane

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Project G.L.E.N., formally known as “Refining Enhanced Fujita Wind Estimates via Unmanned Collection of In-Situ Tornadic Data Measurements,” is an ongoing initiative aimed at advancing tornado research through the development and deployment of an unmanned tornado probe. Through the Gale Level Environmental Navigator (G.L.E.N.) probe, a remote-controlled unit equipped with specialized meteorological sensors and innovative design features, we aim to collect real-time, onsite data from within tornadoes. This approach allows for direct measurement of internal atmospheric conditions such as wind speeds, pressure fluctuations, temperature, humidity, and other storm dynamics while removing human risk from tornado interception, significantly enhancing the safety …

Tess Study Of Wolf-Rayet Stars In The Large Magellanic Cloud, Benjamin Katz, Kassidy Myers, Bailey Wolf, Anthony Fabrega, William Punches

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

TESS Study of Wolf-Rayet Stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud   Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are massive and rare stars whose evolution is mainly changed by stellar winds or binary interactions. In a lot of cases, WR stars are found in binary systems with a companion star, often an O-type star, which can help astronomers find the mass and other properties of the WR star. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), located about 50 kpc from the Milky Way, has a lower metallicity than the Milky Way which makes it a useful place to study Wolf-Rayet stars. For this project, we will study …

Unveiling Stellar Core Depletion In Ngc 4649 With Jwst Nircam, Sydney Krause

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Galaxies are considered to have depleted cores when the central region’s concentration of stars is lower than typical, a feature linked to supermassive black hole formation and vital in galaxy evolution studies. In this project, “Unveiling Stellar Core Depletion in NGC 4649 with JWST NIRCam”, Space-based archival data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) was utilized for several forms of analysis. Initial analysis involved accessing these images via SAO DS9, an astrophysics software for viewing and manipulating files. These images were analyzed using Photoutils, a Python based coding package, part of the Astropy extension. To …

Ngc 4374 With Jwst/Nircam: A Central Structural Analysis Revealing A Depleted Core And Agn, Elizabeth Crevinston

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

We use James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) F150W imaging to study the central regions of massive elliptical galaxies, focusing on their partially depleted cores. These cores are thought to form when a binary supermassive black hole (SMBH) ejects stars from the central regions through dynamical three-body interactions. After the binary coalesces, gas accretion onto the newly formed SMBH can trigger a compact active galactic nucleus (AGN), which plays a key role in regulating star formation and shaping galaxy structure. With JWST NIRCam, we extracted the surface brightness profile of NGC 4374, a giant elliptical galaxy in …

Measuring Cosmic Expansion From Early To Late Times Using Quasars, Galaxies, & Local Supernovae, Rajeev Vaisakh

Physics Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the evolution of cosmic expansion across a wide redshift ($z$) range by combining measurements from quasars \& galaxies in the distant universe $(z > 0.8)$ with those obtained from stripped-core collapse supernovae observations from the nearby universe $(z < 0.1)$. Using the DESI spectroscopic survey, we analyze large-scale clustering from quasars over $0.8 < z < 2.1$ and emission line galaxies over $0.8 < z < 1.6$, contributing to DESI DR2 BAO and full-shape measurements of cosmic expansion and structure growth. Combined with BBN in flat $\Lambda$CDM, DESI DR2 BAO gives $H_0 = 68.51 \pm 0.58$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$, while combinations of DESI BAO with CMB and supernova data show a preference for evolving dark energy, with representative constraints such as $w_0 = -0.752 \pm 0.057$ and $w_a = -0.86^{+0.23}_{-0.20}$ for DESI+CMB+DESY5. Using the ROTSE-III Supernova Survey and the expanding photosphere method (EPM), we measure distances to a sample of six supernovae for which the thermal phase can be clearly identified. This analysis focuses on testing whether reliable EPM distances can be obtained for this population. The resulting distances will eventually be compared with independent estimates from the literature. Establishing consistency with these external measurements represents an important step toward applying this methodology to larger samples, with the eventual goal of using ROTSE supernova distances to provide an independent measurement of the local Hubble constant.

Scattered Light Noise At Ligo Livingston Observatory Induced By Microseismic Ground Motion, Debasmita Nandi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Gravitational waves are “ripples” in the fabric of spacetime and create a minuscule change in the distance between two points. After publishing his theory of general relativity in 1915, Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves as a consequence of the theory. Almost 100 years after the theoretical prediction, gravitational waves were detected for the first time in 2015 by the Advanced LIGO detectors in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington. Gravitational waves have a very small amplitude, making it very challenging to detect them. Different types of noise sources either of instrumental or environmental origin can reduce the astrophysical …

Prediction Of Satellite Temperature During An Orbit Of A Cubesat, Michael Reynolds

Honors Theses

This thesis develops a thermal-simulation strategy for predicting CubeSat component temperatures, applied to Jag-Sat-1, a CubeSat developed at the University of South Alabama and deployed from the International Space Station in 2022. The orbit was reconstructed from two-line element (TLE) data using simplified general perturbations (SGP4) propagation, and spacecraft attitude was recovered from onboard gyroscope measurements. Sunlight, penumbra, and umbra intervals were computed geometrically, and the external radiative environment — direct solar, Earth infrared, and albedo heat fluxes — was modeled using orientation-dependent view factors. These time-varying fluxes drove a transient finite-element thermal simulation of the full satellite geometry in …

Validation Of Electromagnetic Shower Development In A Reduced Alice Focal-E Detector Model Using Geant4, Isaac Lara Romo

Physics

This project focuses on the preliminary simulation of a reduced FoCal-E detector model for the ALICE experiment at CERN. Beamline tests were simulated using an electron gun at various incident energies, and the results were compared with those of the FoCal group. The longitudinal charge deposition per sensor layer was compared between the two setups to verify that the reduced model exhibited expected calorimeter behavior. Additionally, the transverse signal across the high-granularity sensor layers was examined to determine whether the reduced model reproduced the expected lateral development of electromagnetic showers. The results obtained from these measurements show that the reduced …

50,000 Spectra And Counting: Preparing For A Roman Spectral Atlas, Maya Jordan Seagraves

Master's Theses

Slitless spectroscopy with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 \linebreak (WFC3/IR) enables simultaneous spectral coverage of all sources in a field, but large-scale single-orientation datasets remain challenging to process. We developed a pipeline that automates HSTaXe spectral extraction across hundreds of Hubble Space Telescope observations, enabling efficient processing of 84 fields and producing over 50,000 spectra from three filters (F110W, F125W, and F160W) and two grisms (G102 and G141). This was achieved by creating a companion Python package, the Module for Infrared Label Analysis (MILA), that integrates data calibration, extraction, and visualization. To assess the scientific utility of …

Design And Verification Of The Multi-Slit Solar Explorer Camera Field Programmable Gate Arrays, Jordan M. Johnson

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

The Multi-Slit Solar Explorer, or MUSE, is a NASA mission that will take images of the Sun to study solar flares and the solar corona. The mission will provide insight into the mechanisms behind space weather. The mission consists of two cameras: the Spectrograph (SG), and the Context Imager (CI). The Utah State University Space Dynamics Laboratory is providing both cameras for the mission.

This report describes a part of the design and verification process for a central component on these cameras known as the Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). These FPGAs are programmed to acquire, handle, and send images …

Measuring Cosmic Rays With Muon Detectors (Quarknet), Jack W. Maseberg

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

We report measurements of atmospheric muon particles originating from cosmic rays. Using four QuarkNet project scintillators in a stacked geometry, we recorded muons in coincidence with each other. We observed a change in the muon flux due to a solar Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) event on Jan 19, 2026.

10 Men Construct, Donate Florence State's Telescope, Florence Picture

Documents

News article focusing on the 10 men who built the telescope for the Florence State College Observatory. These men were a part of the Florence Astronomy Society and built this telescope to donate to the university.

Fsc Will Have A 'Big Eye', Bob Dixon

Documents

News article from The Florence Times about the new 14 1/2-inch reflector telescope built and donated to Florence State College.

Construction Of A Deffi Sprayer: Using 3d Printer Methodology And Techniques For Cost-Effective Analysis Using Desi Mass Spectrometry Imaging, Ryan Karst, Savvy Stevens, Luke Amos, Logan Koester, Ethan Newbold, Karson Whitaker

Symposium Projects

Using 3D Printer Methodology and Techniques for Cost-Effective Analysis using DESI Mass Spectrometry Imaging

Solar Wind–Magnetosphere Coupling During The September 2025 Cme: Multi-Spacecraft Analysis Using Mms And Omni Data, Skylar G. Butler, Margret Stanley

Student Research Symposium (SRS)

A sequence of two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) impacted Earth in early September 2025, producing consecutive geomagnetic disturbances. The first CME, launched on 31 August 2025 and observed as a halo in SOHO/LASCO imagery, reached Earth on 1 September (~20:45 UTC), generating a clear interplanetary shock. OMNI 1-min solar-wind data show a sudden rise in |B| from ≈ 5 nT to > 25 nT, proton density and velocity increases (≈ 350 → 600 km s⁻¹), and a southward IMF Bz interval that drove enhanced coupling. The Kyoto Dst index recorded a sudden storm commencement followed by a minimum of −75 nT …

Building The Erau Solar Telescope: Advancing Heliophysics Research And Education Through Optical Innovation, Erin Abraham, Sarah Hoover, Skylar G. Butler, Margret Stanley, Gwynlyn Hannah

Student Research Symposium (SRS)

The new Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) Solar Telescope represents a campus-wide collaboration to design and install a high-resolution solar observatory. The ERAU solar telescope, aiming for first light by Summer 2026, will integrate research-grade instrumentation, student training opportunities, and expand public engagement with the ERAU observatory. The telescope is housed within a 2.3-meter refurbished dome structure whose electrical and structural systems are being upgraded to support automated dome rotation and environmental stabilization. The optical design features a multi-element lens and mirror assembly optimized for a 1° field of view. The optical assembly includes a downport centered in the dome that …

The Link Fantastic: Detecting And Linking Simulated, Nongravitationally-Accelerating Objects With The Rubin Observatory Pipeline, Ellie White

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) is poised to revolutionize our understanding of the Solar System. After only a few months of regular operations, Rubin has already discovered over 11,000 new Solar System bodies, and is projected to discover millions more. With discoveries pouring in, and with the development of moving object detection pipelines for routine observing, one key question is: how effectively can Rubin detect and identify objects with anomalous trajectories? The answer is of interest not only for natural bodies in our Solar System, but also in the search for technosignatures, which could be identified …

A Digital Calibration Source For 21 Cm Cosmology Telescopes, Kalyani Balkrishna Bhopi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Precise calibration of radio telescope beams and gains is a central requirement for 21 cm intensity mapping experiments, which aim to measure large scale cosmological structure through the redshifted emission line of neutral hydrogen. Bright astrophysical foregrounds dominate the sky at these frequencies, and separating them from the cosmological signal demands precise control over instrumental systematics, particularly the telescope beam and its frequency-dependent response. Existing aerial calibration sources are incoherent broadband emitters, detectable only as total power. They provide no direct phase information and suffer from poor sensitivity in low signal-to-noise regimes.

We present the Precision Emitter for 21cm Array …

Education In The Planetarium: A Practical Approach, Matthew Fyfe

Honors Projects

This project proposes live planetarium programming built within the 5E instructional model. It creates a practical application of this with lesson modules surrounding topics in observational astronomy. Specifically, there are investigations into instrumentation through CCD cameras and data collection and processing through spectroscopy and photometry with light curve folding with activities highlighting each. Each module is broken down into segments corresponding to the learning cycles of the 5E model, and as they are self contained in this way can be used piecemeal in different combinations.

Applications Of Machine Learning In Gravitational-Wave Research With Current Interferometric Detectors, Elena Cuoco, Marco Cavaglià, Ik Siong Heng, David Keitel, Christopher Messenger

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

This article provides an overview of the current state of machine learning in gravitational-wave research with interferometric detectors. Such applications are often still in their early days but have reached sufficient popularity to warrant an assessment of their impact across various domains, including detector studies, noise and signal simulations, and the detection and interpretation of astrophysical signals. In detector studies, machine learning could be useful to optimize instruments like LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and future detectors. Algorithms could predict and help in mitigating environmental disturbances in real time, ensuring detectors operate at peak performance. Furthermore, machine-learning tools for characterizing and cleaning …

Cosmic Duets: A Search For Binary Supermassive Black Holes In Merging Galaxies, Sagar Adhikari

All Dissertations

Galaxies are vast cosmic islands of stars, dust, and gas. They come in various shapes and sizes. They might look static for the timescales we are used to, but they are dynamic and collisional systems that can merge with other galaxies to make bigger galaxies. Most galaxies, including the Milky Way, host a central supermassive black hole (SMBH) with a mass greater than a million (sometimes a billion) times the mass of the Sun. When galaxies merge, their SMBHs form a binary system before ultimately merging. These cosmic duets are of great interest to astronomers and astrophysicists as they are …

The Core-Collapse Supernovae Particle Physics Interactions, Skylar G. Butler

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

This study investigates the role of specific particle physics interactions in simulations of core collapse supernovae, with a focus on understanding how varying levels of inclusion impact the accuracy of gravitational wave predictions and results of simulations. Different research groups often approach these simulations with varying degrees of complexity, cutting corners by omitting certain reactions or simplifying others. This project systematically evaluates the implications of these choices, comparing the particle physics interactions included, the dimensionality of the simulations, and the governing equations used. Our goal is to identify how these factors influence the precision of numerical simulations. By providing a …

12co Ro-Vibrational Spectroscopy Of Protoplanetary Disks: Inferring Planet-Disk Interactions, Janus Kozdon

All Dissertations

Observing and studying planets around young stars during their initial formation stages is essential for understanding the physics of their formation. Protoplanetary disks are the host sites of planets, and they exhibit substructures that hint towards the planets' presence, but the planet itself has rarely been detected. Analysis of the substructures in protoplanetary disks, especially towards the inner regions where most planets seem to lie, will provide information that can be used to refine theories about planet-disk interactions and, ultimately, planet formation. To probe the high-velocity inner regions, this study utilizes high-resolution spectroscopy, which has increased sensitivity with increasing velocities. …

Dual Quaternions For Gravity Recovery Missions, Ryan Kinzie

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

A dual quaternion-based modeling, state estimation and control approach is introduced as a better alternative to the traditional methods which are currently utilized for gravity recovery missions. The proposed modeling and control approach was verified against and compared to the tangent bundle to Special Euclidean Group 3 through MATLAB simulations. The dual quaternion-based approach shows superior performance over traditional linearized and uncoupled methodologies, in both modeling accuracy of spacecraft translational position, and the ability to control the pose of a test mass relative to its host spacecraft. Utilizing data products from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On mission, a …

Josephson Junctions: Fabrication And Applications For The Axion Dark Matter Experiment, Jonah M. Sachs

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

The observation of axions could revolutionize the world of physics. Through microwave frequency cavity readout of the photons associated with these axions, the ADMX project at WashU utilizes multiple different forms of the Josephson junction (JJ), a superconductive circuit element. The physics behind the JJ are essential to understanding its operation for resonant cavity readout in addition to parametric amplification. Parametric amplifiers produced using JJs can approach the signal-to-noise ratio set by quantum mechanics, and prove essential for the amplification chain used by the ADMX experiment for axionic detection. The limits of these amplifiers are set by the noise tuning …

Measuring Cosmic Rays With Muon Detectors (Quarknet), Aiden Burton, Jack W. Maseberg

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

We report measurement of atmospheric muon particles originating from cosmic rays. Using four QuarkNet project scintillators in an unstacked geometry, we are counting muons in coincidence with each other. We are currently refurbishing a second detector apparatus and will soon be capable of measuring coincidence events for larger shower surface areas using a total of eight scintillators.