After our sun, the nearest star is light-years away; but with five new telescopes at their disposal, undergraduates are one step closer to understanding even more distant celestial phenomena.
Since receiving five 10-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes in July, Associate Professor of Physics Ronen Plesser has been trying to direct attention to the skies. On cloudless nights, Plesser takes his astronomy class out to the Duke Forest, where they use the telescopes to examine the rings of Saturn, the craters of the moon or the trajectories of shooting stars.
The University granted funding for the telescopes and approved Plesser's request to shift their viewing location from the top of the Medical Center to the Duke Forest in June.
Plesser said that he is currently attempting to incorporate observations into the curriculum for Physics 55-Introduction to Astronomy. Students, he said, are still learning to use the new telescopes, which feature built-in software that can locate any star or planet within reasonable distance.
"We're in the process of learning how to efficiently use the fancier telescopes," he said. "[Currently] we're doing lots of fun stuff, but we need more reliable observing time to really put it into the curriculum."
The use of the new telescopes and the establishment of a permanent viewing area in the Duke Forest indicates greater interest in astronomy, said senior Mark Ammons, a teaching assistant for Physics 55. He added that it is an encouraging shift from the University's focus in the past.
"Basically it seems to us that astronomy has never been important here at Duke," said Ammons, who is majoring in physics.
Once the observations are incorporated, they will enhance the learning process as a whole, Plesser said. He emphasized the value of empirical over theoretical learning.
"If you can go out in the field and look at these things you begin to acquire a familiarity of them. I can talk about binary stars and say what they're doing or I can show you a binary star. It just makes learning a lot more sensible," Plesser said. "You'll turn [classroom] material from dry abstraction into things that are real."
Since the beginning of the fall semester, Plesser's students have examined an array of celestial bodies. Currently, these include a few of the brightest galaxies and clusters, double star systems, bright nebulae and other stars and planets, Ammons said.
In addition, Plesser said, students have focused their attention on objects closer to home. "We had the most dramatic thing to see in Saturn, and you can see the rings around it," he said.
The Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes have also aided in instructing third graders from Durham public schools. Some of Plesser's Physics 55 students have volunteered to teach younger students about the Milky Way galaxy-an undertaking made easier because the telescopes do not have to be manually adjusted in order to conduct observations.
Shaambhavi Pandya, a freshman in Physics 55, has helped with instruction on several occasions. "Some of the kids are really smart, and they ask questions that I wouldn't even ask," Pandya said.
Plesser said he now hopes to obtain a 16-inch Newtonian telescope in the spring, which would ideally be set up in a permanent observatory classroom in the Duke Forest. He emphasized that undergraduate research in astronomy would be very possible in such a setting and with the more powerful 16-inch telescope, which can also be used for astro-photography.
Both Plesser and Ammons said they are optimistic about the future of astronomy at the University, and that the telescopes are a positive start.
"They give us a completely new range of what we can do," Plesser said.
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