Relatively Nearby Active Galaxy

BYU Astronomy Research Group Joins the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC)

As of January 2021 BYU will be a member of the ARC Consortium (Link to Consortium) with access to the ARC 3.5-m telescope and the 0.5-m ARCSAT telescope.  The primary use of the ARC 3.5-m telescope time is for graduate student projects.  This provides a wide array of instrumentation that is currently being used to study objects in the solar system all the way to studies of the large scale structure of the Universe.

Other BYU Astronomy Facilities

In addition to our telescope time from the ARC consortium, we operate a number of our own astronomical facilities

West Mountain Observatory (West Mountain)

This is our mountain observatory at about 6600 ft above sea level.  This consists of three telescopes: 0.9-m, 0.5-m, and a 0.32-m. It is a 40 minute drive that ends in a 5 miles drive up a dirt road. The mountain itself can be seen from campus. We don't provide any tours of this facility.

Orson Pratt Observatory

The Orson Pratt Observatory is named for an early apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It is our campus telescope facility and contains a wide variety of telescopes for student research and public outreach. We operate a 24" PlaneWave telescope in the main campus dome, plus a 16", two 12", one 8", and a 6" telescope on our observation deck.  The telescopes are all fully robotic. Beyond this we have a large sections of telescopes used on public nights.

Royden G. Derrick Planetarium (Planetarium)

This is a 119 seat, 39" dome planetarium with acoustically treated walls to allow it's use as a lecture room. Recently we upgraded to an E&S Digistar7 operating system with 4K projectors.  The planetarium is used for teaching classes, public outreach, and astronomy education research projects.





Selected Publications

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A new contact eclipsing binary in the field of KOI 1152
By Emily D. Safsten, Pamela Lara, Michael D. Joner, Denise C. Stephens, and Joseph Rawlins
Abstract:
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The EBLM project II. A very hot, low-mass M dwarf in an eccentric and long-period, eclipsing binary system from the SuperWASP Survey
By M. D. Joner, C. D. Laney, and D. C. Stephens (et al.)
Abstract: In this paper, we derive the fundamental properties of 1SWASPJ011351.29+314909.7 (J0113+31), a metal-poor (−0.40 ± 0.04 dex), eclipsing binary in an eccentric orbit (~0.3) with an orbital period of ~14.277 d. Eclipsing M dwarfs that orbit solar-type stars (EBLMs), like J0113+31, have been identified from their light curves and follow-up spectroscopy in the course of the WASP transiting planet search. We present the analysis of the first binary of the EBLM sample for which masses, radii and temperatures of both components are derived, and thus, define here the methodology. The primary component with a mass of 0.945 ± 0.045 M⊙ has a large radius (1.378±0.058 R⊙) indicating that the system is quite old, ~9.5 Gyr. The M-dwarf secondary mass of 0.186 ± 0.010 M⊙ and radius of 0.209 ± 0.011 R⊙ are fully consistent with stellar evolutionary models. However, from the near-infrared secondary eclipse light curve, the M dwarf is found to have an effective temperature of 3922 ± 42 K, which is ~600 K hotter than predicted by theoretical models. We discuss different scenarios to explain this temperature discrepancy. The case of J0113+31 for which we can measure mass, radius, temperature, and metallicity highlights the importance of deriving mass, radius, and temperature as a function of metallicity for M dwarfs to better understand the lowest mass stars. The EBLM Project will define the relationship between mass, radius, temperature, and metallicityfor M dwarfs providing important empirical constraints at the bottom of the main sequence.
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Reverberation mapping of the kepler field agn ka1858+4850
By Carla J. Carroll, Michael D. Joner, and C. David Laney (et al.)
Abstract: KA1858+4850 is a narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy at redshift 0.078 and is among the brightest active galaxies monitored by the Kepler mission. We have carried out a reverberation mapping campaign designed to measure the broad-line region size and estimate the mass of the black hole in this galaxy. We obtained 74 epochs of spectroscopic data using the Kast Spectrograph at the Lick 3 m telescope from 2012 February to November, and obtained complementary V-band images from five other ground-based telescopes. We measured the H beta light curve lag with respect to the V-band continuum light curve using both cross-correlation techniques (CCF) and continuum light curve variability modeling with the JAVELIN method and found rest-frame lags of tau(CCF) = 13.53(+2.03)(-2.32) days and tau(JAVELIN) = 13.15(+1.08)(-1.00) days. The H beta rms line profile has a width of sigma line = 770 +/- 49 km s(-1). Combining these two results and assuming a virial scale factor of f = 5.13, we obtained a virial estimate of M-BH = 8.06(+1.59)(-1.72) x 10(6) M circle dot for the mass of the central black hole and an Eddington ratio of L/L-Edd approximate to 0.2. We also obtained consistent but slightly shorter emission-line lags with respect to the Kepler light curve. Thanks to the Kepler mission, the light curve of KA1858+4850 has among the highest cadences and signal-to-noise ratios ever measured for an active galactic nucleus; thus, our black hole mass measurement will serve as a reference point for relations between black hole mass and continuum variability characteristics in active galactic nuclei.
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Interstellar Tulip
By Michael D. Joner and C. D. Laney (et al.)
Abstract:
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Kuiper Belt Occultation Predictions
By Michael Joner (et al.)
Abstract: Here we present observations of seven large Kuiper Belt objects. From these observations, we extract a point source catalog with similar to 0.01" precision, and astrometry of our target Kuiper Belt objects with 0.04-0.08" precision within that catalog. We have developed a new technique to predict the future occurrence of stellar occultations by Kuiper Belt objects. The technique makes use of a maximum likelihood approach which determines the best-fit adjustment to cataloged orbital elements of an object. Using simulations of a theoretical object, we discuss the merits and weaknesses of this technique compared to the commonly adopted ephemeris offset approach. We demonstrate that both methods suffer from separate weaknesses, and thus together provide a fair assessment of the true uncertainty in a particular prediction. We present occultation predictions made by both methods for the seven tracked objects, with dates as late as 2015. Finally, we discuss observations of three separate close passages of Quaoar to field stars, which reveal the accuracy of the element adjustment approach, and which also demonstrate the necessity of considering the uncertainty in stellar position when assessing potential occultations.
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The Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2011: Fe II Reverberation from the Outer Broad-line Region
By Tabitha Buehler, Michael D. Joner, and C. David Laney (et al.)
Abstract: The prominent broad Fe II emission blends in the spectra of active galactic nuclei have been shown to vary in response to continuum variations, but past attempts to measure the reverberation lag time of the optical Fe II lines have met with only limited success. Here we report the detection of Fe II reverberation in two Seyfert 1 galaxies, NGC 4593 and Mrk 1511, based on data from a program carried out at Lick Observatory in Spring 2011. Light curves for emission lines including H beta and Fe II were measured by applying a fitting routine to decompose the spectra into several continuum and emission-line components, and we use cross-correlation techniques to determine the reverberation lags of the emission lines relative to V-band light curves. In both cases, the measured lag (tau(cen)) of Fe II is longer than that of H beta, although the inferred lags are somewhat sensitive to the choice of Fe II template used in the fit. For spectral decompositions done using the Fe II template of Veron-Cetty et al., we find tau(cen)(Fe II)/tau(cen)(H beta) = 1.9 +/- 0.6 in NGC 4593 and 1.5 +/- 0.3 in Mrk 1511. The detection of highly correlated variations between Fe II and continuum emission demonstrates that the Fe II emission in these galaxies originates in photoionized gas, located predominantly in the outer portion of the broad-line region.