NSF Award
2408131
The Dark Sky Observatory (DSO) at Appalachian State University maintains a 32-inch diameter telescope used by faculty, students, and collaborators in the study of comets, the color and brightness characterization of nearby stars, binary stars (stars in orbiting pairs), chemically peculiar stars, and the eclipse of distant stars by asteroids in our solar system. The primary strength of this telescope is the ability to carry out projects that require rapid, repeated measurements over long timescales, like the study of activity in the atmospheres of young solar-like stars, or the evolution of cometary bodies entering the inner solar system. Much of the current instrumentation, however, is either limited by age or design. This project will upgrade the telescope’s imaging and spectroscopic capabilities and convert them to a more modern control system. This will provide a platform for more varied projects for Appalachian State undergraduate students pursuing careers in astronomy, both observational programs and activities focused on instrumentation.<br/><br/>Small telescopes fill an important niche in modern astronomy due in no small part to their ability to dedicate significant blocks of time to projects/targets such as monitoring campaigns, observations requiring high cadence, discovery follow up, and large surveys. In this regard, the 32-inch telescope at the Dark Sky Observatory at Appalachian State University, and its instruments, have been remarkably successful over the decades. To continue this legacy in the modern era, this project will provide a new high-QE CCD camera to upgrade the primary spectrograph, a fiber-optic bundle to move the mini-echelle spectrograph to a bench-mount configuration, a new imaging camera and filters with wider field of view, a blue sensitive camera with filter wheel and filters to be used in the study of comets, and an upgrade to the telescope control system including absolute encoders. Together, these improvements will greatly enhance the capabilities of the telescope, as well as provide new tools for the faculty, students, and collaborators. The new spectrograph also will enable a time-exchange program with the University of the Free State (UFS) and Boyden Observatory in South Africa, allowing astronomers and their students at both locales access to both hemispheres. In addition, this project will enable the investigators to open 10% of the available spectroscopic queue (190-200 nights per year, with roughly 70% usable) to the broader astronomical community.<br/><br/>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.
