WKU Students Visit and Observe at Kitt Peak National Observatory
April Pease and Schuyler Wolff recently won time on the Mayall 4-meter telescope (located at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona) to observe the host galaxies of type Ia supernovae, crucial tools being used to explore the nature of Dark Energy. Their project, under the direction of Dr. Lou Strolger, investigated the products of star formation and chemical enrichment in galaxies which hosted supernovae in the duration of the Nearby Galaxies Supernova Search, with a goal of uncovering the elusive nature of these events through the environments which produce them. Wolff and Pease obtained spectra of these galaxies over 4 nights using the Ritchie-Chretien Spectrograph.
The students also had the opportunity to tour the various telescopes at the astronomical observatory, and assisted in the maintenance of the WKU-lead RCT 1.3-meter telescope, a fully autonomous telescope also located at Kitt Peak National Observatory.
