Dan Reichart

Aimed at in-person participants

For the past 14 years, UNC-Chapel Hill has been developing a unique, survey-level astronomy curriculum, primarily for undergraduate students. Called “Our Place In Space!”, or OPIS!, this curriculum leverages “Skynet” – a global network of ≈20 fully automated, professional-grade telescopes that we have deployed at some of the world’s best observing sites. The curriculum has now been adopted by over two dozen institutions, and we have recently received (1) $1.85M from NSF's IUSE program to expand it nationwide, and (2) $3M from DoD’s NDEP program (a) to integrate a global network of 10m – 30m diameter radio telescopes into Skynet, and (b) to develop a follow-up curriculum to OPIS!. Both grants come with funding for new instructors. Astrophotography of the Multi-Wavelength Universe (MWU!) will be for students who have already completed OPIS!, and will be able to provide this smaller group of students more telescope time per student, making possible color- and radio mapping-, inquiry-based explorations. MWU! will consist of at least a dozen observing experiences (half optical, half radio), primarily on the subjects of stars, galaxies, and light-producing mechanisms. Astrophotography will serve as this curriculum’s “hook”. Most of the development effort to date has been on the optical observing experiences, as those facilities were already ready. However, we are now turning to the radio observing experiences. In this workshop, participants will learn how to queue radio observations on Skynet, and will carry out at least one of MWU!’s radio experiences (other MWU! radio activities will be overviewed more quickly).