FCAD Observing Opportunities at the WIYN 0.9m
The Five College Astronomy Department is guaranteed 15 nights per year on the WIYN 0.9m telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory outside of Tucson, AZ. This partnership with WIYN is designed to provide professional observing experience to both our undergrad and graduate students.
We allocate observing time in two ways:
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Each January (season B), the class AST 341, led by FCAD Fellow Kim Ward-Duong, begins their term with an 8-night observing run. The class then continues during spring term, with students conducting research projects on the data they collected, culminating in a poster presentation to the full Five College Astronomy Department. Applications are here (pdf format) or (docx format) to join the class for 2018 Spring term.
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Each spring (season A), 7 nights are available for FCAD use for PI-led observing projects. Proposals are reviewed by an internal TAC and successful ones are sent to WIYN. PI's can be faculty, post-docs, grad or undergrad students. Each PI is expected to take one or more undergraduates on the observing run. Applications for 2018A observing season are here : Observing Proposal Form. Notify sedwards at smith dot edu right away if you are thinking about applying. FCAD proposals need to be at WIYN by Nov 10, 2017.
The FCAD provides travel funds for all observers. Once the observing schedule is released any unscheduled nights can be requested, at no additional cost, by anyone in the consortium, on a first come/first served basis.
The telescope:
The telescope only has imaging instrumentation. The prime camera is the HDI (Half Degree Imager) and the backup instrument is S2KB.
There are numerous filters that can be used with HDI (or S2KB). Those with guaranteed availability include the full set of SDSS filters (except for u) plus those listed at the bottom of this page. Also available if not scheduled on another telescope: