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K.S. Bjorkman (U. Toledo)
Small, dedicated telescopes, such as those typically run by individual universities, are valuable resources for particular types of astronomical observations. Such telescopes can be flexibly scheduled to support collaborative multi-wavelength campaigns or to observe targets of opportunity with very short notice. They can also be used for ongoing long-term monitoring programs, which give valuable insight into variability studies. To maximize the scientific return from these kinds of telescopes, adequate instrumentation and support is required, and setting scientific goals is important. Collaborative efforts between observatories with small telescopes equipped for different (but complementary) types of observations can be especially productive in this context. Scientific projects should be carefully selected to take best advantage of the available capabilities. I will discuss two example cases, namely the high-resolution spectroscopic monitoring program at the Ritter Observatory of the University of Toledo, and the spectropolarimetric monitoring program at the Pine Bluff Observatory of the University of Wisconsin.
This work has been supported under NASA contract NAG5-26777 with the University of Wisconsin, and NASA grants NAG5-8054 and NAG5-3248 to the University of Toledo. KSB is a Cottrell Scholar of the Research Corporation, and gratefully acknowledges their support.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: karen@astro.utoledo.edu