F&M at NURO

Spring 2007

Participants:Observational Astronomy Class

(S07 Ast 240)

• Prof. Froney Crawford

• Prof. Beth Praton

• Cori Quirk

• Don McElheny

• Louis Klapper

Louis Cori Don

Froney

Our Team

Photo: Beth

March 13–15, 2007

• Joint run with Gettysburg, overlapping on 3/13

• Observing program: Pleiades rapid rotators (Hii1883, 2244, 2927)

BE UMa

• Clear weather all three nights

At NURO…observation skills

Trip Home…Crisis Management Skills

Phoenix

midnight

Detroit

5 am

Arrived at noon.

Finally got flight at

Detroit

Lancaster, PA

Home at Last!

RentACar

Back Home…Learn IRAF

? ? *#@! ??

We didn’t find this E-Z…

So…we wrote our own guide

Next time: we’re ready!

Arecibo Program

~2 students per year, all undergraduate, more than half women, typically start at Jr level, chosen from best students in astrophysics classes

ACTIVITIES INCLUDE: monthly data taking at the 100-m Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico via internet and on-site improving timing models: Lommen, Kipphorn (F&M ‘06) et al., 2006, ApJ 642:1012. developing algorithms to search for gravitational waves: Lommen, Bilikova (F&M ‘04) et al 2005, ASP Conf Series 328: 225.

F&M in Australia

NANO-Grav

• North American Nano Hertz Observatory of Gravitational Waves– F&M, UCBerkeley, NRAO, McGill,

University of British Coluumbia, UT Brownsville

– NRAO Green Bank 100m Telescope and the Arecibo 300m Telescope

Figure courtesy of George Hobbs

NANO-G

rav

limit

Putting Gravitational Wave Physics into High School and

College CurriculaAnnual Workshop with Center for

Gravitational Wave Physics at Penn State