Research at the Stocker AstroScience Center
Research at the Stocker AstroScience Center is carried out in two ways: remotely and locally.
Remote observing using the SARA telescopes
Observations using the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA) remote telescopes are carried out from the second floor "Star Trek Bridge” control room. This special feature of the center was designed to function as a control room for the three SARA remote telescopes: the 1-m telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, the 0.60-m telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, and the Jacobus Kapteyn 1-m telescope on the Canary Island of La Palma. Dr. James Webb and his students use these telescopes to observe microvariation of blazars, and Dr. Walter Van Hamme and collaborators make photometric observations of eclipsing binary stars.
For more information on Dr. Webb's research, visit the director's page.
Local observing using the Stocker 24-inch telescope
The 24-inch telescope in the Stocker AstroScience Center dome is used by students to conduct a variety of optical astronomy projects, ranging from taking images of planets and nebulae to monitoring bright quasars.