Southern Utah Ring of Fire

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

Scott Bergeson, Juliana Boerio-Goates, Michael D. Joner, Bart J. Kowalis, M. Jeanette Lawler, J. Ward Moody, Steve Nelson, Randy Skinner, R. Steven Turley, Eric Hirschmann, and B. Kent Harrison
C. D. Laney and M. D. Joner (et al.)
High-precision (smag < 0.01) new JHK observations of 226 of the brightest and nearest red clump stars in the solar neighbourhood are used to determine distance moduli for the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The resulting K- and H-band values of 18.47 +/- 0.02 and 18.49 +/- 0.06 imply that any correction to the K-band Cepheid PL relation due to metallicity differences between Cepheids in the LMC and the solar neighbourhood must be quite small.t
Tabitha Buehler, Michael D. Joner, and C. David Laney (et al.)
The Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2011 observing campaign was carried out over the course of 11 weeks in spring 2011. Here we present the first results from this program, a measurement of the broad-line reverberation lag in the Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 50. Combining our data with supplemental observations obtained prior to the start of the main observing campaign, our data set covers a total duration of 4.5 months. During this time, Mrk 50 was highly variable, exhibiting a maximum variability amplitude of a factor of similar to 4 in the U-band continuum and a factor of similar to 2 in the H beta line. Using standard cross-correlation techniques, we find that H beta and H gamma lag the V-band continuum by tau(cen) = 10.64(-0.93)(+0.82) and 8.43(-1.28)(+1.30) days, respectively, while the lag of He II lambda 4686 is unresolved. The H beta line exhibits a symmetric velocity-resolved reverberation signature with shorter lags in the high-velocity wings than in the line core, consistent with an origin in a broad-line region (BLR) dominated by orbital motion rather than infall or outflow. Assuming a virial normalization factor of f = 5.25, the virial estimate of the black hole mass is (3.2 +/- 0.5) x 10(7) M-circle dot. These observations demonstrate that Mrk 50 is among the most promising nearby active galaxies for detailed investigations of BLR structure and dynamics.
Michael D. Joner, Benjamin J. Taylor, and C. David Laney (et al.)
New BV (RI)(C) measurements of Praesepe made at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) are presented. When those measurements are combined with those reported in previous papers in this series, it is found that they support previously determined V zero points for Praesepe, M67, and the Hyades. Support is also found for joint (V - R)(C) and (R - I)(C) zero points established previously for Praesepe and NGC 752. For the SAAO system of standard stars, a B - V correction to the Johnson system of about -9 mmag appears to be reasonably well established. The preferred (though not definitive) V correction is about +7 mmag. For the Landolt V system, zero-point identity with the Johnson system at a 2 sigma level of 4.8 mmag is found, and no color term as large as 4 mmag (mag)(-1) is detected. Updated CDS data files for Praesepe are briefly described.
Michael D. Joner, Eric G. Hintz, C. David Laney, and J. Ward Moody (et al.)
The Seyfert 1 galaxy Zw 229-015 is among the brightest active galaxies being monitored by the Kepler mission. In order to determine the black hole mass in Zw 229-015 from H beta reverberation mapping, we have carried out nightly observations with the Kast Spectrograph at the Lick 3 m telescope during the dark runs from 2010 June through December, obtaining 54 spectroscopic observations in total. We have also obtained nightly V-band imaging with the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope at Lick Observatory and with the 0.9 m telescope at the Brigham Young University West Mountain Observatory over the same period. We detect strong variability in the source, which exhibited more than a factor of two change in broad H beta flux. From cross-correlation measurements, we find that the H beta light curve has a rest-frame lag of 3.86(-0.90)(+0.69) days with respect to the V-band continuum variations. We also measure reverberation lags for H alpha and H gamma and find an upper limit to the H delta lag. Combining the H beta lag measurement with a broad H beta width of sigma(line) = 1590 +/- 47 km s(-1) measured from the rms variability spectrum, we obtain a virial estimate of M-BH = 1.00(-0.24)(+0.19) x 10(7) M-circle dot for the black hole in Zw 229-015. As a Kepler target, Zw 229-015 will eventually have one of the highest-quality optical light curves ever measured for any active galaxy, and the black hole mass determined from reverberation mapping will serve as a benchmark for testing relationships between black hole mass and continuum variability characteristics in active galactic nuclei.
Michael D. Joner and C. D. Laney (et al.)