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J. D. West (The Boeing Company), D. R. Alexander (Wichita State University)
A collaborative research program in late-type stars is currently underway in Wichita, Kansas, between a professional astronomer and an amateur astronomer Doug West. The goal of this program is to gain an understanding of the chemical and physical processes that occur in the atmospheres of late-type giant stars. The project requires spectrophotometric and photometric measurements of K, M, S, & C of stars. These observations are then compared with model stellar atmosphere calculations produced by the Phoenix code (Hauschildt, Allard, Ferguson, Baron, & Alexander, 1999, ApJ, 525, 871).
Spectra and photometry are obtained by the amateur astronomer using a Meade LX200 8" telescope, an SBIG ST-8 CCD camera, research grade filters, and a 200 lines/mm transmission grating. Spectra and photometric data are extracted from the CCD images using MIRA 6.0 and custom software. Spectrophotometry to the 8th magnitude and photometry to the 12th magnitude are possible with this system. To date, several dozen spectra and photometric measurements have been completed. Undergraduate students at Wichita State University have been involved in the data reduction process. Long term goals of the project include defining a chemical sequence among AGB stars and describing the atmospheric changes that occur in small amplitude variable stars.
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The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: dwest61506@aol.com