MRI: Acquisition of a meter-class telescope at Western Kentucky University

The investigators propose to replace an out of date telescope and control system used at Western Kentucky University (WKU) with a modern telescope and control system. The new instrument will provide students and faculty at WKU and nearby colleges and universities, a platform with which they can undertake research-quality observations. The instrument will be used by students and faculty to study a range of research involving studies of distant galaxies and outstanding questions in stellar astronomy.

The new instrument will enable WKU to increase the involvement of undergraduate students in research projects.

The investigators propose to replace the existing 40-year-old, 0.6 m Group 128 telescope and control system at Western Kentucky University’s (WKU) Bell Observatory with a new PlaneWave 0.7 m telescope and control system. This new instrument will serve students and faculty at WKU and nearby colleges and universities. There is currently no instrument in the state that is both large enough to provide research quality data and widely available to students and faculty.

The instrument will be used by researchers (1) to understand the structure of, and emission mechanisms at work in, Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN); (2) to probe the structure of the Milky Way galaxy; (3) to distinguish between transiting planetary systems and low mass eclipsing binaries; and (4) to study previously neglected classes of variable stars that are important distance indicators (RR Lyrae variables) and systems that allow the direct determination of physical characteristics of stars (eclipsing binary stars).

This project is jointly funded by the AST ATI Program, the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and OD/OIA/MRI.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.