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S. Adelman (The Citadel), A. Gulliver (Brandon Univ.), B. Smalley (Keele Univ.), J. Pazder (DAO), F. Younger (Aurora Astron. Serivces), L. Boyd, D. Epand (Fairborn Obs.)
A CCD-based spectrophotometer for an automated 0.5-m telescope at the Fairborn Observatory should begin operations by Spring 2004. The Citadel ASTRA (Automated Spectrophotometric Telescope Research Associates) Telescope will permit observations of Vega the primary standard, rapid measurements of naked-eye stars, have sufficient time for photometric measurements of the nightly extinction, and still be able to observe stars of about 10.5 mag. in an hour. This multiplexed cross-dispersed instrument should produce high-quality fluxes at least of \lambda\lambda3300-9000 with a resolution of 14 Å~in first and 7 Å~in second order except for regions badly affected by telluric lines. We will synthesize a variety of commonly used filter photometry indices. The first major observing project will be the revision and extension of the bright secondary standards. Model atmospheres are the analytical link between the physical properties of stars (M, R, L, and composition) and the observed flux distribution and spectral line profiles. By comparing model atmospheres predictions with spectrophotometric fluxes (and Balmer line profiles) effective temperatures, surface gravities, and metallicities can be found for a wide variety of stars. Comparisons for the same star between the best-fitting model atmospheres calculated from different codes will provide insight into how well each code reproduces these observations. High-quality elemental abundance studies will permit consistency checks. As the efficiency of convection can produce observable results in the energy distributions, it should be possible to check the results of different convection theories. The ASTRA team in planning to deal with the potential flood of data realizes that it will need help to make the best scientific uses of the data and thus is interested in discussing possible collaborations.
ASTRA Contribution 1v2. This work is supported by NSF grant AST-0115612 to The Citadel.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://www.citadel.edu/physics/astra. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: adelmans@citadel.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35 #3
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.