SONOMA STATE UNIVERSITY

Observatory Report 1994-95

reprinted from the Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 28, 1, 605 (1996).

This report, the Department's nineteenth, covers the period September 1994 through August 1995. More up-to-date information may be found at the Department of Physics and Astronomy pages. Reports from other years are also available.

I. PERSONNEL

The faculty consisted of professors Lynn R. Cominsky, John R. Dunning, Samuel L. Greene, Duncan E. Poland (Chair), Saeid Rahimi, Gordon G. Spear (Observatory Director), and Joseph S. Tenn.

II. INSTRUCTION

A total of 462 students took Descriptive Astronomy, Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Interstellar Travel, Frontiers in Astronomy, Cosmology, and Advanced Observational Astronomy.

The Department awarded 5 B.A. degrees and 5 B.S. degrees. (All degrees are in physics.) There were 42 physics majors in Spring 1995.

III. EQUIPMENT

Optical telescopes are mounted in a sliding-roof observatory on campus. Auxiliary instrumentation for the 0.36-m Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope includes a CCD camera, an f/10 guide scope, a 0.2-m f/3 Baker-Schmidt camera, wide field cameras, a slitless prism spectrograph, a dispersion grating spectrograph with a Hg-Ne comparison source, and a 0.5 Å H alpha

filter

The Epoch Instruments 0.25-m f/5 Newtonian telescope is computer-controlled. The system points reliably to within 1-2 arcminutes on the sky. When used with the AstroLink CCD camera, the resulting images have a 20 arcminute field of view and a 2 arcsecond/pixel image scale. Reliable photometry is feasible for objects as faint as 16th magnitude.

IV. RESEARCH

Cominsky continued working part-time in the Particle Astrophysics Group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center on projects involving X-rays and high-energy gamma-rays. She is helping to develop a ground data system for the Unconventional Stellar Aspect Experiment, which will be launched on the ARGOS satellite in 1997. She is also working on science simulation for high-energy gamma-ray detectors using silicon strip technology as part of a NASA approved mission concept study. The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) was one of 24 missions chosen recently by NASA for further study.

Cominsky has continued to study the X-ray emission from the radio pulsar-Be binary PSR 1259-63, that she originally discovered in 1993. Guest observer observations to obtain additional data on this object were approved for the ASCA, OSSE and XTE experiments. She has also been studying the high energy gamma ray emission from GRO J0542+26, to see if it could be related to the binary X-ray transient A0535+26. Students Dan Hale, Siana Hurwitt and Susan Webster did a special studies project with Professor Cominsky to learn about this type of research.

Tenn continued researching and writing a series of articles on the recipients of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's Catherine Wolfe Bruce gold medal. He remains chair of the ASP history committee.

V. MISCELLANEOUS

The optical observatory was used 32 times, including 17 for public viewing nights, classes, and tours, and 15 for research. There were 350 visitors.

Cominsky spoke at San Francisco State University on the Astrophysics program at SLAC. She also led a workshop on building pinhole cameras as part of SLAC's annual Take your Daughters to Work Day.

The Department presented its "What Physicists Do" public lecture series, under Cominsky's direction, for the 48th and 49th semesters. Visiting speakers on astronomical topics were Kem Cook and David Dearborn (Lawrence Livermore National Lab), Ion-Alexis Yadigaroglu and Philip Scherrer (Stanford University), William Jackson (University of California, Davis), Garrett Jernigan and Lars Bildsten (University of California at Berkeley), and Mia Luehrmann (Gettysburg College).

VI. PUBLICATIONS

Hertz, Paul, Wood, Kent S. and Cominsky, Lynn. 1995, "Eclipse Timings of the Low Mass X-ray Binary EXO 0748-676: Statistical Arguments against Orbital Period Changes", Astrophysical Journal, 438, 385

King, Andrew and Cominsky, Lynn. 1994, "The X-ray Emission of the Pulsar-Be Star Binary PSR 1259-63", Astrophysical Journal, 435, 411

Tenn, Joseph S. 1994, "Bruce Medalist Profiles: Willem de Sitter," Mercury 23, 5, 28

Tenn, Joseph S. 1995, "Bruce Medalist Profile: John Stanley Plaskett," Mercury 24, 1, 34

Tenn, Joseph S. 1995, "Bruce Medalist Profile: Carl V.L. Charlier," Mercury 24, 3, 40

Joseph S. Tenn
1998-02-18