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| navigate: home: magazine: fall 2001: article | |
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New astronomical observatory enhances educational outreach at Penn State Erie By Loretta Brandon and Deborah A. Benedetti | ||||||
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Hundreds of students and community residents are enjoying the benefits of a new refracting telescope and astronomical observatory at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, according to Dr. Roger Knacke, professor of physics and astronomy and director of the School of Science at Penn State Erie. The telescope and observatory, gifts of Dr. Robert Mehalso, his wife, Elizabeth, and their family of Fairport, N.Y., are enhancing the college’s monthly Open House Nights in Astronomy series, a public outreach program. “The program has been extremely successful,” Knacke said. “People have a natural interest in astronomy. Most of us have wondered about the universe and our place in it. Our astronomy outreach program helps people to share in the excitement of astronomy and the research that is being done in this field.” Knacke brought his love of astronomy and his commitment to public outreach to Penn State Erie in the fall of 1992. Within a year, he launched the first Open House Night in Astronomy. He was the primary lecturer during the first few years of the program. Attendance for each program rose to between 75 and 125. As the program grew, Knacke involved his Penn State Erie colleagues and colleagues from the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at University Park campus, as well as faculty from Cornell University, the Carnegie Institute of Washington, Columbia University, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Space Telescope Science Institute. The programs begin with a lecture on a topic in astronomy and conclude with astronomical viewing with the college’s telescopes, weather permitting. The Erie community has been very receptive to the program, and several local school districts are using the outreach program as part of their science classes. Students from Erie’s Strong Vincent and East high schools are involved in a research project on Jupiter that uses NASA’s Goldstone Radio Telescope in California to gather data. Members of the Erie County Mobile Observers Group, a local amateur astronomy club, also participate in the program by setting up their telescopes outside the college’s observatories for public stargazing. In his research, Knacke focuses on astrophysical problems related to the origins of solar systems and the birth of stars. Using primarily techniques of infrared astronomy, he collaborates with colleagues and students on NASA-funded research. Several students have worked with him to observe disks of gas and dust. They use the W.M. Keck Observatory and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Other students are working on calculations of Earth’s early climate and climates on other planets, under the supervision of Dr. Darren Williams, assistant professor of physics and astronomy. The new Meade Instruments Corporation refracting telescope is four feet long and has a lens that is seven inches in diameter. It is completely computer-controlled, with software that permits automated access to thousands of objects in the sky. The telescopic images can be transmitted to a larger viewing screen placed just outside the observatory or in the Otto Behrend Science Building lecture hall. In addition to donating the telescope and observatory, the Mehalso family created a scholarship for science and engineering students. Robert Mehalso, a native of Springboro, Pa., is a 1964 graduate of Penn State. He attended Penn State Erie in 1961 and 1962. Penn State Erie’s older, smaller observatory is still in use, Knacke said. It houses a 12-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain reflecting telescope. Physics and astronomy students are using this telescope for undergraduate research projects. Knacke is a member of the Solar System Science Team of the European Space Agency’s Infrared Space Observatory and serves on a number of NASA and National Science Foundation committees, including the W.M. Keck Observatory NASA Telescope Allocation Committee. He earned bachelor of science (1963) and doctoral (1969) degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. Information about Open House Nights in Astronomy is available at http://www.pserie.psu.edu/science/Seminars.htm. An outreach program of Penn State Erie | |||||
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