We have still yet to resolve some of the course conflicts for spring but we are working on it and I'll let you know. Physics has confirmed that they will not be offering Phys 335: Electric Circuits Lab II this summer. Please plan your schedules accordingly! Take a look at what's going on this week as well as some astronomy-related announcements.
Northwest Undergraduate Women's Physics Conference: The 1st annual Northwest Undergraduate Women in Physics Conference will be held on April 16-17th, 2011 at the University of Oregon Center in Portland, OR! Registration is now open for the Northwest Undergraduate Women in Physics Conference! Please visit
http://pages.uoregon.edu/wits/wits/nwpc/home/
to register. Registration will close on February 28th.
There is no conference fee, and lodging and food will be provided. However, travel funds will not be provided. If there are any questions or concerns about the conference, see the website, or you can contact the organizing committee at uoregon.wip_at_gmail.com.
8th International Planetary Probe Workshop, 6-10 June, 2011 in Portsmouth, VA. This conference also includes an exciting Short Course on Atmospheric Entry Systems Technologies on 4-5 June. The announcement contains program, venue, and registration information, also found at: http://www.planetaryprobe.org The Web site is open for abstract submittal and registration. Course attendance is limited, so please register soon!
AstroLunch: Tuesday at noon in the reading room (B356A) Leon Harding (National University of Ireland, Galway) will give a talk on "A search for the optical counterpart to the radio pulses detected from ultracool dwarfs". Feel free to bring your lunch to this talk!
Astronomy Colloquium: This Thursday at 4pm in Phys/Astr A102, Bruce Balick (UW) will give a talk on "New Vistas on Planetary Nebulae". Join us in the foyer at 3:45pm for coffee, tea and cookies.
Student Radio Telescope: The Student Radio Telescope (a 7-ft-diameter dish on the roof of a nearby building) is now working well, and this message is to invite Astronomy majors to join in. It is best if you have had the ASTR 321-22-23 sequence (esp. 322) and an EM course (but you do not have to know electronics). If you are interested in learning about the basics of radio astronomy and doing any of the projects below, please sign up for 1 hr of ASTR 499 - Sarah can give you an entry code. If you're interested in more than 1 hr credit, then we should talk beforehand. It is not absolutely necessary to sign up for 499, but it helps the Dept. if you do so. We will meet once weekly (exact time chosen to fit everyone's schedules) to discuss data, etc. from the previous week, as well as plans for the following week. For one hour credit, you will be expected to attend this meeting, observe at the SRT for at least 1.5 hrs per week, and analyze your data as needed.
- Woody Sullivan
P.S. In Autumn 2011 I will be teaching a 3-credit course "Intro. to Radio Astronomy" (ASTR 497A); besides lectures and a few problem sets, this will have a "lab" component that will involve using the SRT.
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Possible projects with the Student Radio Telescope (SRT)
- monitor the 1400 MHz flux of the sun (we are at the start of the next cycle of the 11-yr sunspot cycle, and the radio intensity varies a lot, too)
- map the galactic plane in continuum radiation
- study the distribution of atomic hydrogen by measuring the 21 cm line at various locations
- study the rotation of the Milky Way by measuring shifts in the velocities of the 21 cm line
- detect very weak sources such as the Crab Nebula (Tau A), the supernova remnant Cas A, the galactic center Sgr A, the H II region Orion A (Orion nebula), and the Moon
- develop some standard software for data analysis
- work on Web pages for the SRT
- work on write-ups of standard projects (such as those above) for future students to use
Have a great week,
Sarah
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