Instrumentation Commons^™

Databases And Inter-Connectivity In Ground-Based Astronomy, Ted Von Hippel, C. M. Mountain

Publications

Optical and infrared ground-based astronomy is undergoing a renaissance. Advances in material technology, system modeling, and the ability to correct atmospheric distortions in real time have produced a new generation of powerful, large telescopes. An equally profound revolution stems from the availability of large observational databases that span the electromagnetic spectrum. The increased use of such databases as well as the need to operate the new telescopes efficiently requires the development of a National or International Virtual Observatory to set standards for astronomical database formats, data quality assurance, and access protocols, and also to provide all-inclusive centers for data products.

Climatology Of Deep O+ Dropouts In The Night-Time F-Region In Solar Minimum Measured By A Langmuir Probe Onboard The International Space Station, Shantanab Debchoudhury, Aroh Barjatya, Joseh I. Minow, Victoria N. Coffey, Linda N. Parker

Publications

The Floating Potential Measurement Unit (FPMU) onboard the International Space Station includes a Wide sweeping Langmuir Probe (WLP) that has been operating in the F-region of the ionosphere at ∼400 km since 2006. While traditional Langmuir probe estimates include critical plasma parameters like electron density and temperature, we have also extracted the O+ percentage from the total ion constituents. This O+ composition dataset from the recent minimum in the Solar Cycle 24 reveals orbits with dropouts in O+ to below 80% of the total background ion density at ISS orbital altitudes. The observed O+ percentages during these dropouts are much …

Cepheid Variable Light Curve Analysis On The Embry-Riddle 1-Meter Telescope, Kayla Taylor

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

This report details light curve analysis for four Cepheid variable stars (Polaris, RT Aurigae, RX Aurigae, and Zeta Geminorum) using Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's 1-meter reflecting telescope and a SBIG-STX 16803 camera with a g filter. Observations were conducted once per week during the Spring 2021 semester; at least one three-hour shift was allotted per week according to the Observational Astronomy Telescope Allocation Committee (TAC). Individual light curves for each target Cepheid were then compared to published data to analyze evidence of evolution on the Instability Strip. Although the light curves showed the sinusoidal nature of brightness oscillations, amplitudes of the …

Corrigendum: The Remote Observatories Of The Southeastern Association For Research In Astronomy (Sara), William C. Keel, Terry Oswalt, Peter Mack, Gary Henson, Todd Hillwig, Daniel Batcheldor, Robert Berrington, Chris De Pree, Dieter Hartmann, Martha Leake, Javier Licandro, Brian Murphy, James Webb, Matt A. Wood

Publications

Bill Gray of Project Pluto brought to our attention an error of 0.03° in the listed latitude of our Kitt Peak telescope. While correcting the table where this occurred, we also take the opportunity to update the instrument properties and weather statistics of our remote telescopes

Astro2020 Apc White Paper. 2020 Vision: Towards A Sustainable Oir System, Sally Oey, Terry D. Oswalt, Tom Maccarone, Fred Walter, Charles Bailyn, Jay Gallagher, Todd Henry, Derek Buzasi, J. Allyn Smith, Rachael Beaton, Jim Webb, Brad Barlow, Misty Bentz, Leslie Hebb, Patrick Kelly, Jedidah Isler, Michael Meyer, John Salzer, Simone Scaringi

Publications

Open-access telescopes of all apertures are needed to operate a competitive and efficient national science program. While larger facilities contribute light-gathering power and angular resolution, smaller ones dominate for field of view, time-resolution, and especially, total available observing time, thereby enabling our entire, diversely-expert community. Smaller aperture telescopes therefore play a critical and indispensable role in advancing science. Thus, the divestment of NSF support for modest-aperture (1 – 4 m) public telescopes poses a serious threat to U.S. scientific leadership, which is compounded by the unknown consequences of the shift from observations driven by individual investigators to survey-driven science. Given …

Research In Optics For Gravitational Wave Detection, Britney Biltz, Noura Ibrahim, Brennan Moore

Undergraduate Research Symposium - Prescott

B.Biltz uses a horizontal “Zollner style” pendulum to monitor changes in the local gravitational field. The pendulum is attracted to the moon and the Sun and so, as the Earth turns, the pendulum’s equilibrium point shifts within a 24-hour period. This is an experiment designed to test the limits of such a pendulum. This sort of system may be useful as a method of monitoring and correcting for gravity gradient noise in future gravitational wave detectors.

N.Ibrahim characterizes thermo-optic noise in high-performance mirror coatings of the type used in Advanced LIGO. To characterize thermo-optic noise, she measures the change in …

Automation And Enhancements To The Erau Oscom System Space Situational Awareness, Sergei Bilardi, Patrick Rupp, Yevgeniy Lischuk, Joseph Stroup

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

OSCOM, Optical tracking and Spectral characterization of CubeSats for Operational Missions, is a system developed at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to produce time-resolved photometry of small satellites using commercial-off-the-shelf hardware. OSCOM has been able to observe resident space objects (RSOs) as small as CubeSats using a Celestron 11” RASA and a CMOS machine vision camera from Allied Vision. By obtaining photometric measurements of satellites, a light curve can be constructed and used to help determine satellite characteristics such as spin rate, satellite state, and even satellite attitude. To enhance the OSCOM system’s ability to observe small satellites, there is ongoing development …

The Capabilities Of The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16 (Goes-16), Brandon M. Kane

Student Works

This report investigates the capability of the new Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16 (GOES-16) satellite to display 16 channels of the electromagnetic spectrum, to produce images at a higher resolution at increased intervals, and to detect and display lightning. This report also discusses the main instrumentation aboard the new geostationary satellite and how it aids in creating accurate data collection, which in turn, produces quicker weather forecasts and warnings. The 16 different channels produced by the Advanced Baseline Imager aboard the new satellite are analyzed in detail as to the functions and wavelengths on which the channels operate. The image resolution …

Book Review: Shoot The Moon: A Complete Guide To Lunar Imaging, T. D. Oswalt

Publications

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of Shoot the Moon: a Complete Guide to Lunar Imaging by Dupont-Bloch, Nicolas. Cambridge, 2016, 323 p index, 9781107548442 $39.95, 9781316657867 $32.00.

Book Review: From The Realm Of The Nebulae To Populations Of Galaxies: Dialogues On A Century Of Research, Astrophysics And Space Science Library, 435, T. D. Oswalt

Publications

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of From the Realm of the Nebulae to Populations of Galaxies : Dialogues on a Century of Research, Astrophysics and Space Science Library, 435. by Mauro D'Onofrio, Roberto Rampazzo, and Simone Zaggia Springer, 2016 785p bibl index afp, 9783319310046 $279.00, 9783319310060 $219.00

The Remote Observatories Of The Southeastern Association For Research In Astronomy (Sara), William C. Keel, Terry D. Oswalt, Peter Mack, Gary Henson, Todd Hillwig, Et Al.

Publications

We describe the remote facilities operated by the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA) , a consortium of colleges and universities in the US partnered with Lowell Observatory, the Chilean National Telescope Allocation Committee, and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. SARA observatories comprise a 0.96 m telescope at Kitt Peak, Arizona; one of 0.6 m aperture on Cerro Tololo, Chile; and the 1 m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope at the Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain. All are operated using standard VNC or Radmin protocols communicating with on-site PCs. Remote operation offers considerable flexibility in scheduling, allowing long-term …

Examination Of Resonant Modes In Microwave Cavities, Sophia Schwalbe, Gianpaolo Carosi

Student Works

The Axion Dark Matter eXperiment (ADMX) looks to detect dark matter axion particles by using microwave cavities in a high magnetic eld to convert the axion's mass energy to a detectable photon. The photon frequency corresponds to the axion mass. Tuning elements in the cavities allow the resonant frequency to be changed but only certain modes couple to the axion. Interactions with additional resonant modes that do not couple to the axion cause unobservable regions in the frequency range. This research investigated new methods to move the additional resonant modes in order to observe these regions.

The Power Of Principled Bayesian Methods In The Study Of Stellar Evolution, Ted Von Hippel, David Van Dyk, David Stenning, Elliot Robinson, Elizabeth Jeffery, Nathan Stein, William Jefferys, Erin M. O'Malley

Publications

It takes years of effort employing the best telescopes and in- struments to obtain high-quality stellar photometry, astrometry, and spectroscopy. Stellar evolution models contain the experience of life- times of theoretical calculations and testing. Yet most astronomers fit these valuable models to these precious datasets by eye. We show that a principled Bayesian approach to fitting models to stellar data yields substantially more information over a range of stellar astrophysics. We highlight advances in determining the ages of star clusters, mass ratios of binary stars, limitations in the accuracy of stellar models, post-main-sequence mass loss, and the ages of individual …

Bayesian Analysis For Stellar Evolution With Nine Parameters (Base-9): User's Manual, Ted Von Hippel, Elliot Robinson, Elizabeth Jeffery, Rachel Wagner-Kaiser, Steven Degennaro, Nathan Stein, David Stenning, William H. Jefferys, David Van Dyk

Publications

BASE-9 is a Bayesian software suite that recovers star cluster and stellar parameters from photometry. BASE-9 is useful for analyzing single-age, single-metallicity star clusters, binaries, or single stars, and for simulating such systems. BASE-9 uses Markov chain Monte Carlo and brute-force numerical integration techniques to estimate the posterior probability distributions for the age, metallicity, helium abundance, distance modulus, and line-of-sight absorption for a cluster, and the mass, binary mass ratio, and cluster membership probability for every stellar object. BASE-9 is provided as open source code on a version-controlled web server. The executables are also available as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud …

Book Review: New Eyes On The Universe: Twelve Cosmic Mysteries And The Tools We Need To Solve Them, T. D. Oswalt

Publications

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of New Eyes on the Universe : Twelve Cosmic Mysteries and the Tools We Need to Solve Them by Stephen Webb. Springer/Praxis, 2012 371p, 9781461421931 $44.95, 9781461421948

A New Pulsar Instrumentation At The Allen Telescope Array And The Nancay Radio Telescope, G. Desvignes, William C. Barott, I. Cognard, P. Lespagnol, G. Theureau

Publications

In the prospect of the gravitational wave background detection with high precision pulsar timing, we recently installed a new coherent dedispersion backend at the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) and the Nançay Radio Telescope (NRT).

Book Review: Electronic Imaging In Astronomy: Detectors And Instrumentation 2nd Ed., T. D. Oswalt

Publications

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of Electronic imaging in astronomy : detectors and instrumentation 2nd ed. by Ian S. McLean, Springer/Praxis, 2008 552p, 9783540765820 $99.00

A Three-Dimensional Pattern-Space Representation For Volumetric Arrays, William C. Barott, Paul G. Steffes

Publications

A three-dimensional pattern-space representation is presented for volumetric arrays. In this representation, the radiation pattern of an array is formed by the evaluation of the three-dimensional pattern-space on a spherical surface. The scan angle of the array determines the position of this surface within the pattern-space. This pattern-space representation is used in conjunction with a genetic algorithm to minimize the sidelobe levels exhibited by a thinned volumetric array during scanning.

Book Review: The Telescope: Its History, Technology, And Future, T. D. Oswalt

Publications

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of The Telescope : Its History, Technology, and Future by Geoff Andersen. Princeton, 2007 248p, 0691129797 $29.95, 9780691129792 $29.95.

Book Review: Stargazer: The Life And Times Of The Telescope, T. D. Oswalt

Publications

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of Stargazer : the Life and Times of the Telescope by Fred Watson. Da Capo, 2004 342p, 0306814323 $24.95

Book Review: Observing Variable Stars, Novae, And Supernovae, T. D. Oswalt

Publications

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of Observing Variable Stars, Novae, and Supernovae by Gerald North with Nick James Cambridge, 2004 230p, 0521820472 $45.00.

Book Review: The New Amateur Astronomer, T. D. Oswalt

Publications

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of The New Amateur Astronomer by Martin Mobberley. Springer, 2004 229p, 1852336633 $34.95

(Teff,Log G,[Fe/H]) Classification Of Low-Resolution Stellar Spectra Using Artificial Neural Networks, Shawn Snider, Yuan Qu, Carlos Allende Prieto, Ted Von Hippel, Timothy C. Beers, Christopher Sneden, David L. Lambert, Silvia Rossi

Publications

New generation large-aperture telescopes, multi-object spectrographs, and large format detectors are making it possible to acquire very large samples of stellar spectra rapidly. In this context, traditional star-by-star spectroscopic analysis are no longer practical. New tools are required that are capable of extracting quickly and with reasonable accuracy important basic stellar parameters coded in the spectra. Recent analyses of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) applied to the classification of astronomical spectra have demonstrated the ability of this concept to derive estimates of temperature and luminosity. We have adapted the back-propagation ANN technique developed by von Hippel et al. (1994) to predict …

A Review Of Automated Stellar Spectral Classification And Surveys, Ted Von Hippel, Coryn A.L. Bailer-Jones

Publications

Modern spectroscopic surveys and automated classifiers are becoming so inextricably linked that it is difficult even to summarize one without discussing the other. Some of the automated classifiers are being built because of current analysis needs, though with a clear anticipation of future, larger surveys. Other automated classifiers are being designed specifically for future surveys. Automated classifiers may be applied to databases already in hand, to real-time analysis at the telescope, or one day to on-board satellite analysis where the raw data are too bulky to save and transmit. In addition, many current spectroscopic surveys target galaxies. These surveys may …

Wiyn Data Distribution And Archiving, Rob Seaman, Ted Von Hippel

Publications

The NOAO/IRAF Save the Bits archive has been operating for over three years at Kitt Peak National Observatory and at the National Solar Observatory's nighttime program. Since that time, the W. M. Keck Observatory and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory have also adopted the software. These first generation Save the Bits installations rely on Exabyte tapes as the archival medium, typically using pairs of drives to produce duplicate copies of the data for heightened protection against data loss. The upgrade of Save the Bits that is currently in progress to support writable CD-R drives is discussed. In addition to another …

The Application Of Artificial Neural Networks To Stellar Classification, Coryn A. L. Jones, Mike Irwin, Ted Von Hippel

Publications

We are working on a project to automate the multi-parameter classification of stellar spectra using Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Artificial Neural Networks. We present here the usefulness of PCA as a form of spectral data compression, and our results to date of classification on the MK system.