Research

This committee shall seek to promote and encourage astronomical research and related activities for its membership (such as projects in astronomical imaging, photometry, spectroscopy, lunar occultation measurements, solar and lunar eclipse studies, solar flare and sunspot monitoring as well as studies of an historical and archaeoastronomy nature).

Committee Chair: Dr. Mary Lou West,
Vice Chair: Clif Ashcraft

Projects

Exoplanet Transit Observations: training on Saturday January 23, 4-6 PM at Sperry Observatory by Dennis Conti. We plan to observe specific exoplanet transits in cooperation with the American Association of Variable Star Observers (https://www.aavso.org/exoplanet-section) to provide synchronous observations with infrared observations done from the Hubble Space Telescope. Dennis Conti will also lead a trial observation that evening, weather permitting.

NOTE: Because of the big snow storm on January 23, the workshop by Dennis Conti for training us on Exoplanet Transit Observations has been postponed to Saturday February 6, 2016 from 4-6 PM at Sperry Observatory.

Citizen CATE (http://www.noao.edu/noao/staff/mpenn/eclipse2017.html) is enlisting amateur astronomers to run CCDs on small telescopes during the total solar eclipse of August 2017.

AAI Astronomy Day, afternoon activities at Trailside Nature and Science Center, evening activities at Sperry Observatory.

Publications:

Perrineville Observatory Report: Double Star Measurements for 2006,
by Clif Ashcraft,  JDSO, 3, 2, 82, Spring 2007

Speckle Interferometry with a Low Read-Noise CMOS Video Camera,
by Clif Ashcraft, JDSO, 12, 3, 280, March, 2016.

Speckle Interferometry of Close Visual Binaries with the ZW Optical ASI 224MC CMOS Camera,
by Russell Genet, David Rowe, Clif Ashcraft, Sam Wen, Gregory Jones, Benoit Schillings, Richard Harshaw, Jimmy Ray, and Jacob Hass, JDSO, March, 2016

Seek Exoplanets From Your Backyard ,
by Dennis Conti, Astronomy, 44, 7, 60, July 2016

If you have any questions about the Research Committee, our goals, and how you can join, send a note to Mary Lou West (westm at mail dot montclair dot edu)

Research Reports