Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers: Regional Meeting, Roane Community College, Harriman TN

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Radio Astronomy in Undergraduate Education

A SARA Regional Meeting was held on 16 November 2002 (during the Leonids meteor shower), at the Tamke-Allan Observatory of Roane State Community College in Eastern Tennessee. The meeing was organized by:

David E. Fields, Ph. D.
Observatory Director
Tamke-Allan Observatory
Roane State Community College
276 Patton Lane
Harriman, TN 37748-5011
865 882-4533 (Math-Sciences Division)
Home page: www.roanestate.edu/obs/
fieldsde @ aol.com

Charles Osborne reports:

Thought everyone might enjoy seeing the group shot (minus Janis who was taking the picture) of the SARA Southeastern Regional Meeting held last weekend at Roane State University, Harriman TN. David Fields, our host, is second from the right in this shot taken at their off campus observatory.
Click on thumbnail to download full-size picture.

Janis Osborne photo

David had invited a variety of hams and area astronomy club members to the event, which drew anywhere from 20-30 people depending upon where/when you took roll. Wanda Diaz and Omyra Aviles even came up from University of Puerto Rico to present and attend. We met on campus Saturday morning in a nice size ampitheatre style classroom with some excellent AV equipment. Later we went to their off site observatory on a knoll overlooking the river.

A classroom adjoins the observatory dome. And as you can see, David has a couple of dishes at the observatory. And he has a SpectraCyber system. He also has JOVE/SkyPipe with Internet connectivity from there.

A copy of the schedule is pasted in below. Haystack Observatory had to pre-empt our remote control demo for rocket launch tracking. And we had some difficulties with the Internet Firewalls.. but I think we're all learning a lot about the challenges of doing live demos over networks. My unrehearsed demo of FFT signal processing of a live 217 MHz radar signal out of Alabama for meteor observing worked better than expected using a 6 element yagi lashed to the railing outside.

Saturday night was a public night at the observatory, so we returned after supper for some additional talks. Even though the clouds precluded any telescope viewing, several people come up just to see the lecture that evening.

Sunday the Dean of Math and Science, Dr. Adolf King, invited Wanda, Omyra, David, Janis, and I over to his house for lunch. He seemed very pleased with the way the mini-conference came off. So was I.

A lot of fun was had by all.

The schedule for the meeting was as follows:

MORNING SESSION - Main RSCC Campus (Harriman)

0900 Welcome

0920 John Mannone, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Multispectral Radio Astronomy

0940 Charles Osborne, Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI)
Education and Research Initiatives at Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute

1000 Wanda Diaz and Omayra Aviles, University of Puerto Rico
Applications of the University of Puerto Rico Radio Telescope (UPRT)
Radio Jove Projects in High School Teaching

1020 BREAK

1030 David Fields, Carl Lyster and Bill Howe, Tamke-Allan Observatory, Roane State Community College and Martin Marietta Corp.
Historic and Current Meteor Monitoring Activity

1050 Ken Roy, Ultimax Corporation
Shell Worlds

1110 LUNCH -- Cracker Barrel In Harriman

1330 AFTERNOON SESSION - Tamke-Allan Observatory

1330 Jim Thieman (on-line from Alaska, with Alaska Teacher's workshop) NASA/GSFC
Special Coordinated Solar Observing Time over Jove Network (solar observing)

1330-1530 EST TAO will be on-line observing solar emission for this event.

1330 Andy McFall, Wanda Diaz and David Fields, Tamke-Allan Observatory, Roane State Community College
Monitoring Radio Signals from Jupiter and the Sun (demonstration)

1400 Carl Lyster, Martin Marietta Corporation
Construction of a Neutral Hydrogen Spectrometer: Detection of Interstellar Hydrogen (demonstration)

1430 Eric Gern, Stan Kurtz and David Fields, Tamke-Allan Observatory, Roane State Community College
Remote Operation of the MIT Haystack Radio Telescope (demonstration)

1500 Charles Osborne, Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI)
217 MHz Meteor Scatter using Naval Space Radar (demonstration)

1530 Wanda Diaz and Omayra Aviles, University of Puerto Rico
Remote Operation of the NRAO 40-foot Radio Telescope (demonstration)

1600 DINNER -- Cancun's In Harriman

1900 PUBLIC NIGHT AT TAMKE-ALLAN OBSERVATORY

1900 Roy Morrow, Tamke-Allan Observatory, Roane State Community College
CCD Astrophotography

1945 D.R. Fudge, J.A. Jones Corporation
Comments from the Obstreperous Astronomer

SUNDAY OPTIONAL EVENT - Visit To PARI (coordinated by Charles Osborne)

Thanks to Chuck Higgins of Middle Tennessee State University for sending Project Jove brochure handouts. Thanks to Dr. Wade McCamey and Dr. Adolf King of Roane State Community College for their encouragement. Thanks to Charles and Janis Osborne for helping contact the SARA members and for planning a visit to PARI.

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