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R. M. Blake, M. W. Castelaz (Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute), J. Daugherty (UNC-Asheville), L. Owen (Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute)
More than ever modern astronomy is based upon a multi-wavelength approach combining data-sets from optical, infrared, radio, X-ray and gamma ray observatories to provide improved understanding of astrophysical phenomena. In the field of astronomy education however, until recently most teaching resources available to high schools have been limited to small optical telescopes, with little coverage of other branches of observational astronomy. To fill in this resource gap, PARI has developed the School of Galactic Radio Astronomy and the Smiley 4.6 m Radio Telescope to provide high schools access to a state-of-the-art, internet accessable radio observatory for class projects and activities. We describe here the development of the Smiley radio telescope, its control systems and give examples of several class activities which have been developed for use by high school students. We describe the future development of Smiley and plans to upgrade its performance.
The SGRA has been supported by grants from Progress Energy, Z. Smith Reynolds, STScI IDEAS, and the AAS Small Research Grant Program which is supported by NASA.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://campus.pari.edu/tw/SGRA/sgra.html. 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: mblake@pari.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.