Whitney Wills
                Western Kentucky University
                Faculty Sponsor: Mike Carini
                Observations of Active Galactic Nuclei via a Student Operated
                Remote Observatory
I will describe an astronomical observatory run by undergraduate students under the supervision of faculty mentors. The facility is operated remotely from the campus of Western Kentucky University. Undergraduate students operate a 0.6m telescope equipped with a CCD camera to obtain data for key science projects. Our primary goal is the monitoring of the brightness variations of Active Galactic Nuclei and using these variations to investigate the physics at work in these objects. Working from a control room on WKU's campus, the telescope and camera are controlled over the internet. The scientific data is stored at the observatory and transferred via the internet to WKU's campus, where it is archived and analyzed by undergraduate students. I will report on the results of our first 9 months of monitoring AGNS.
 


 

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