Research: Astronomy/Astrophysics

The APSU astronomy and astrophysics group is greatly expanding their research efforts. We operate or have access to two telescopes - one near the main APSU campus and a larger telescope located at Kitt Peak National Observatory outside Tucson, AZ. The APSU Observatories are used for various types of research by faculty and students alike.

The Department has recently joined the WIYN Consortium (Wisconsin, Indiana, Yale, NOAO) at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. This gives access to the 0.9m (36in) telescope equipped with a large format imaging system and several filter sets. APSU gets about 16 nights per year on this system. The telescope is currently used by APSU faculty and students for development of standard stars to support large cosmology surveys and future telescopes (LSST and James Webb Space Telescope), follow-up of supernovae and variable stars, and observations of white dwarf stars.

In addition to our association with WIYN, APSU is also establishing a 0.5m observatory of our own right here in southwestern Montgomery County Tennessee. Construction is still in the early stages, but a dome has been purchased, and the telescope is being built.

The 0.5m (20-inch) telescope is temporarily located on the APSU farm while the dark sky site is being developed. The astronomy research group uses this facility to study variable stars, conduct supernovae searches, and perform long-term monitoring of potential calibration stars. The location of the telescope near campus allows easy access to follow targets-of-opportunity such as recently detected supernovae and novae and gamma ray bursts. The telescope is equipped with a large format imaging camera (Apogee Ulta U16000) equipped with Sloan Digital Sky Survey-ugriz filters. A set of Johnson-Cousins UBVRI-filters and a small set of Balmer-alpha redshifted filters will be ordered soon. This last set will allow studies of nearby galaxies.