Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute





















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































The Crab Nebula and its Pulsar in Radio
The Crab Nebula and its Pulsar; Photo credit: J. Hester and P. Scowenh

Progress

Week 8  ( 26 June – 30 July 2004 )

This week sees the end of the 8 weeks at PARI for the summer; the fellowship is broken (well, not really, thanks to email, the forum, IM, and the start of school in a few weeks). We’ll be getting together again in August 30, 2004 at UNC-Asheville to get s tarted on our goals for the Fall Semester. Until then, we won't be posting any more news here. More can be expected about once a month duyring the school year.

Wednesday’s meeting of the team (or most of it) provided a fitting climax to the summer as we presented our progress, discussed out difficulties, and set our goals for the rest of the project. Even with the discouraging state of the pulsar projector's light source (or lack of thereof), we were able to look back upon true progress we have made and gain a renewed vision for the future development of the projector. The cylinder was incredible, absolutely incredible. I don't think I realized the true potential of our project until I sat there and watched the Milky Way turn slowly over my head. Dr. Castelaz was right; what we are doing (and have already done) is truly unique.

The items on the agenda for this final summer meeting were:

Pulsar Projector

We had soldered one of our circuits last week and were concerned that it didn't work. We tested and re-soldered much of the circuit that looked dubious, but it took the presence of Dr. Moffett for us to realize that the circuit was behaving just as it should. I also completed circuit diagrams for both the Crab and 0329 pulsar circuits and Mrs. Walsh is sending one of them to an engineer of her acquaintance for his advice.

We also conducted further research into potential light sources for the pulsar. We believe that lasers may be safely used and have already ordered a shipment of laser pointers to be cannibalized and tested in our existing circuits. Probably the greatest hindrance that remains to be overcome is the obtaining of Class I laser modules (which are too dim to be regularly used in projection application such as ours) and the clearing of the red tape that seems to hang upon any venture making use of lasers (but that will probably be Learning Tech's problem).

Test of Radio Sky StarLab Show

While in the StarLab yesterday, we got to hear the first official RadioSky planetarium show given by Dr. Blake using a script written by the one and only Matt Storey
Week 7  ( 19 June – 23 July 2004 )

Cylinder

We had the cylinder printed and set it up in the StarLab. The cylinder projected really well and aside from 3 or 4 minor adjustments it should be finished. We will try to have these adjustments made by the time of our meeting on Wednesday. Anyway, the cylinder was a big success so everyone be sure to thank Zach for finding a good printer.

Evaluation of the Radio Sky Cylinder and Curriculum by Teachers

On Wednesday a group of elementary teachers participating in the Pisgah Forest Institute weeklong workshop on Environmental Science came up to PARI. They are given an evening of astronomy instruction that includes a StarLab program about the night sky. We visited the StarLab with them as Dr. Mel presented our radio sky cylinder for the first time. Dr. Mel did a great job for just having this cylinder a few hours before hand (a few minor errors, but it's acceptable). The reaction to the cylinder was incredible! When it was first projected, it was met with aw. The teachers were really excited about it without even knowing anything about radio astronomy. Which brings us to the point. Becky and I talked with the group after they saw the cylinder and got this feedback:

*it's really cool

*there needs to be a tutorial for teachers and students prior to going into the StarLab which explains radio astronomy and how we got these images and why we used radio instead of optical

*information on black holes, binaries, etc. are needed

*Possible activities for the kids prior to going into the StarLab would be having the visual and radio images side by side (the teachers loved having Jupiter up there cause they knew it) and after coming out of the StarLab, have the kids draw their interpretation of the sources (using color for intensity, etc.)

Basically, a lot of the points/issues that were brought up we are already covering with our lesson plans or multimedia programs. Also it was mentioned that the tutorials, lessons, animations should be available through the web (even as links to PDF files) since most schools won't have a budget to get the CD-ROM. The response was 100% positive. We have to say that seeing our cylinder right after the night sky cylinder was incredible! They should definately be tied together. Helps with perspective. So props to Dr. Mel for throwing together a talk on our radio cylinder and doing a fine job! And props to Zach and Shawn to a job very well done on the cylinder.

Lesson Plans

Click here for more lesson plans.

Pulsar Projector

And once again there is good and bad news. We'll start with the good news. We received our promising LED MagLight bulb in the mail and we actually got it to light up without blowing it up! But, we are having trouble collimating it enough so that with its limited brightness we can produce a visible spot, or pulsar, on the wall. We need to do some more testing, but we may have to return to the original laser idea. The other good news is that we soldered the timing circuit.

And the bad news is....

After soldering the circuit our first test was unsuccessful. We were getting voltage from the battery all the way through our circuit, but no pulse. Bummer. We will fix it though. The worst news of all is actually good news in a way. After several days spent looking at the low voltage we were reading on the oscilloscope we realized thanks to Mr. Osborne that our leads were dividing the signal by 10. But, at least we now know and we can now clearly see that we are getting the voltage we should be. This does mean however that the bulb we are currently using is as bright as it will get. The light source continues to be the biggest dilemma.

We also talked with Mr. Doug Shellabarger from JTECH corporation. JTECH is a company that makes restaurant pagers (like the costers that vibrate and blink). We discussed possibilities for the puslar vibrator that JTECH might be able to offer us. He got a much better idea of what we are trying to do than we were able to communicate over email and we, in turn, gained a better understanding of possibilities that JTECH might offer for the "pulsar pulsater." We are currently waiting for a reply back from him regarding a question we left him with on Wednesday.

All in all it was a good weeks work. We made progress.


Week 6  ( 12 June – 17 July 2004 )

Lesson Plans

Time is really starting to fly! This week was spent doing an array of things. We spent some time at UNCA discussing some activity ideas and polishing up lesson plans. We are trying to create something more along the lines of lessons for the StarLab presentations that will be taught and discussed in the StarLab. Our interest is in the focus spots and where they are in relation to us. Kind of a lesson on how expansive the universe is. We'll see how it turns out.

Multimedia

Here's a rough start on the activity to teach wave properties (and we do mean "rough"). Click for Waves. This is more of an excercise for us to learn how to create clean wave and animate them than anything else.

Pulsar Projector

We made some progress and also created some new problems. We tried using a filament bulb from a mini Maglite, but the filament wouldn't cool down fast enough in between pulses, so it looked liked the bulb was on all the time. We also found out that the signal to the speaker was not the one we wanted. So we spent a lot of time raiding the downstairs workshop for parts and pestering Mr. Osborne (PARI Technical Director) for help (a special thanks to Mr. Osborne for all his patience and help). Even after implementing a new circuit design, the signal was still not right. After getting frustrated with it, we left circuitry for awhile and spent time researching super bright LEDs as another possible light source. We have placed an order for a promising bulb that we think will do the job, and when it comes in hopefully we will be successful in the final steps.

There is a happy ending to all this, however (please don't cry). Soon after, wefiddled around with the circuit and, out of shear providence, got the circuit to do exactly what we want.

We also spent some time trying to learn the design software we will be using to draw and submit our circuit design to Learning Technologies. That turned out to be another frustrating endeavor.

T-shirts

We should make some moves to choosing a t-shirt design so we can get those out and made. If they actually follow through on sending us to conferences, it would be a great conversation starter.


Week 4 and 5  ( 28 June – 9 July 2004 )

Weeks 4 and 5 flew by. So, this is a summary of activity for those two weeks.

The Cylinder

The team wants to produce an acetate version of the cylinder for testing in the StarLab. One was printed out, but didn’t work very well. So, the team searched for a place to get a decoy cylinder to be printed out on acetate, but found that the only places who even had an acetate printer were Universities who only allowed their students to used them, and were starting to phase out the printers themselves!

Initial attempts to contact printers about getting a copy of the template on acetate turned out less than encouraging. Basically, the best we can do locally is to possibly get portions of the template at 8.5x11 and either piece them together or view them individually as we have been. Two team members are going to check with printers in the Winston-Salem & Raleigh areas.

In week 5, final touches were put on the template so that we could send it to a printer.

Lesson Plans

The team started work on researching and developing the lesson plans yesterday and plan to at least have 2 activities put together by the weekend. They began work on lesson plans for the supplemental material to be included with the final RadioSky package. The team is currently working on a lesson that will introduce students, primarily in grades 9-12, to some basic concepts of wave mechanics, electromagnetism, and the EM spectrum. These concepts constitute the background necessary for understanding the significance of radio astronomy and the radio sky.

Team members reviewed the state and national education standards that seemed applicable to what we are doing, it struck one of us that home educators might also be interested in what we are doing. Home education is a rapidly growing trend in America, though it is a little more difficult to study since there are no national standards. As a result, we have begun contacting curriculum developers and prominent homeschoolers in the local homeschool support group, seeking their counsel on the content that we include and the manner that we present it in.

Pulsar Projector

Those working on the pulsar projector continue to look into the safety guidelines regarding the use of lasers in the StarLab and spent much of Friday searching for contacts. We made contacts at the Roper Mountain Science Center in Greenville through the Greenville County School District Office, and the American National Standards Institute. While the feedback we received was not all together negative regarding our use of a laser in the StarLab program, we are not encouraged to further attempt to use the laser. Thus we began researching alternate light sources to project our pulsar.

Due to mounting concerns over the use of lasers, of whatever intensity in the StarLab, we have begun to look into other possible light sources for the projector. We have already found several encouraging possibilities. Through the help of a senior engineering major at UNCA (thanks Stan) I also found a program (PSpice) that will allow us to design, test, and draw circuit diagrams for the circuits that we use in the pulsar projector.

Thursday, we a made a most successful trip to Furman to meet with Dr. Moffett and then up to PARI where we made huge strides in the construction of the pulsar projector. We rounded up a prototype base for our projector and made another trip to "the Shack" where we purchased circuit boards and a mag light flashlight.

At PARI we cut the base board to specifications. We also constructed the second pulsar circuit. PSR 0329 is now right on 1.4 Hz where it needs to be. We also tested the bulb from the mag light flashlight. The bulb when shown through a cylinder collimates decently and with a couple tweaks it should be our new light source!!!!! No MORE LASER DANGER!!!!!!!!Hallelujah!!!

Web Design

We have also spent some time reaquainting ourselves with Maya - dynamics in particular. Maya has a number of functions that may be helpful to us if we want to animate things such as the life of stars, binaries, black holes, etc. Particle emitters can be created to simulate the emisson of radio waves from sources, gas clouds, etc. Fields can be incorporated to include forces such as gravity, friction, etc. Animations in Maya can also be brought into Director, which could allow the user to navigate and interact with the animation(s).

We have come up with some ideas for an interactive animation to teach basic wave phenomena as well. Basically, this would consist of a cross-section of ripples in water (to demonstrate mechanical waves) and include various activities for students to learn about frequency, wavelength, period, etc.

We also think having at least one component with a 3D animation is necessary for our package. People respond better to 3D interaction and it's just awesome to play with.
Week 3  ( 21 – 25 June 2004 )

This week we constructed a full size test cylinder which we used to project our current template in the STARLAB. We found that certain issues we had been worrying about such as how our fonts would project were not going to be a problem. The test allowed us to identify problem regions which we will be working to correct next week. Overall, the results of the cylinder test were very encouraging.

We all participated in a lab in which we built timing circuits using 555 chips. The physics team constructed a timing circuit that created a pulse and included a laser and a speaker.

Goals for Next Week:

Cylinder:

· Test projection of our template modifications in the STARLAB
· Have our template sent to a professional printer to get a better
  idea of how the final cylinder will actually project
· Solve "top-wrapping" problem

Pulsar Projector:

· Correct timing circuit
· Construct an amplification circuit for the speaker
· Begin building the projector base


Click here to view 6 photos from this week in a new window.

Week 2  ( 14 – 18 June 2004 )

Our team spent the majority of this week working on different aspects of the project. Early in the week, we built a mock-up of the cylinder using acetate to help visualize our layout in a 3-dimensional format.

After several days of research, our team decided on five radio sources of different types ( a planetary source, a supernova remnant, a binary star system, a radio galaxy, and our galactic center) to highlight in our presentation. We are close to finalizing our template.

Members of our team began developing designs for the pulsar projector while researching available technologies and considering technical limitations. We also examined the nationwide educational standards in preparation for the creation of supplementary learning activities.

Goals for Next Week:

Cylinder:

· Finish template design
· Construct blank full-size model of STARLAB cylinder for projection
  purposes
· Find location of the five radio sources within the band of the Milky
  Way
· Obtain a better image of SS433 (Binary star system)
· Find out specifics for font: face, size, etc.

Pulsar Projector:

· Monday: Everyone will present a design for the projector
· Continue researching available technologies
· Buy materials and build prototype(s)


Click here to view 12 photos from this week in a new window.

Week 1  ( 7 – 11 June 2004 )

During the first week our team attended lectures designed to teach us more about radio astronomy as well as instructional lectures on some of the software we will be working with. We attended three STARLAB presentations by Dr. Bob Hayward in which we experienced how the STARLAB functions as an educational tool. During these sessions we were able to examine the cylinders and the projector we will be working with.

A great amount of our spare time was spent in impromptu brainstorming sessions in which we came to better understand the scope of the project including many of the engineering dilemmas involved. The multimedia interns began experimenting with different ways of portraying the radio sky using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop software packages. The physics interns under the guidance of Furman University professor Dr. David Moffett used the radio telescopes to observe pulsars. Our team began gathering radio images from internet archives in order to begin assembling our radio sky map.


Goals for Next Week:

In a final meeting we formed a list of tasks that will be addressed next week.

Cylinder:

· Create mock-up using acetate to experiment with cylinder layout
· Finalize cylinder layout
· Develop objectives for learning activities using educational
  literature
· Identify radio sources on which the cylinder will focus

Pulsar Projector:

· Address options for pulsar component
· Decide which pulsars to include
· Research available technologies for pulsar projector such as
  lasers, timing devices and power sources


Click here to view 23 photos from this week in a new window.

Furman National Science Foundation UNC Asheville