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

LouisCori 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-Grav limit

Putting Gravitational Wave Physics into High School and College Curricula Annual Workshop with Center for Gravitational Wave Physics at Penn State