Graduate Student Savanah Turner Publishes Study of over 300 L and T dwarfs

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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Physical Science Foundations, 2nd Edition
J. Ward Moody, M. Jeanette Lawler, Juliana Boerio-Goates, R. Steven Turley, David V. Dearden, Bart J. Kowallis, and Michael D. Joner
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The KPNO International Spectroscopic Survey. V. H alpha-selected survey list 3
J. Ward Moody (et al.)
The KPNO International Spectroscopic Survey ( KISS) is an objective-prism survey designed to detect extragalactic emission-line objects. It combines many of the features of previous slitless spectroscopic surveys with the advantages of modern CCD detectors and is the first purely digital objective-prism survey for emission-line galaxies (ELGs). Here we present the third list of ELG candidates selected from our red spectral data, which cover the wavelength range 6400-7200 angstrom. In most cases, the detected emission line is H alpha. The current survey list covers the region of the NOAO Deep Wide Field Survey (NDWFS). This survey covers two fields; the first is 3 degrees x 3 degrees and located at R: A: 14(h)30(m), delta = 34 degrees 30' (B1950.0), and the second is 2.degrees 3; 4.degrees 0 and centered at R.A: 2(h)7(m)30(s), delta = -4 degrees 44'. A total area of 19.65 deg(2) is covered by the KISS data. A total of 261 candidate emission-line objects have been selected for inclusion in the survey list (13.3 deg(-2)). We tabulate accurate coordinates and photometry for each source, as well as estimates of the redshift, emission-line flux, and line equivalent width based on measurements of the digital objective-prism spectra. The properties of the KISS ELGs are examined using the available observational data. When combined with the wealth of multiwavelength data already available for the NDWFS fields, the current list of KISS ELGs should provide a valuable tool for studying star formation and nuclear activity in galaxies in the local universe.
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Photometric accuracy of deconvolved simulated astronomical images
J. W. Moody (et al.)
A study of the photometric accuracy of deconvolved astronomical images was undertaken by processing two simulated images with several well-known algorithms. The simulations consisted of an image of a simple star field and an image of an active galactic nucleus (AGN). Each image was mathematically convolved with a known PSF and then deconvolved to recover the original image. Measurements and comparisons were made before and after the deconvolution to check for photometric accuracy. The best result for the star field was obtained with the multiscale Richardson-Lucy algorithm. When measuring the differential photometry of the nucleus of the AGN between different frames, leaving the image in its convolved state gave a closer variability result to the original than any deconvolution method.
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Physical Science Foundations, 1st Edition
J. Ward Moody, M. Jeannette Lawler, Juliana Boerio-Goates, R. Steven Turley, David V. Dearden, Bart J. Kowallis, and Michael D. Joner
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The KPNO international spectroscopic survey. IV. H alpha-selected survey list 2
J. W. Moody (et al.)
The KPNO International Spectroscopic Survey (KISS) is an objective-prism survey for extragalactic emissionline objects. It combines many of the features of previous slitless spectroscopic surveys with the advantages of modern CCD detectors and is the first purely digital objective-prism survey for emission-line galaxies. Here we present the second list of emission-line galaxy candidates selected from our red spectral data, which cover the wavelength range 6400 to 7200 Angstrom. In most cases, the detected emission line is Halpha. The current survey list covers a 1.degrees6-wide strip located at delta = 43degrees30' (B1950) and spans the right ascension range 11(h)55(m) to 16(h)15(m). The survey strip runs through the center of the Bootes void and has enough depth to adequately sample the far side of the void. An area of 65.8 deg(2) is covered. A total of 1029 candidate emission-line objects have been selected for inclusion in the survey list (15.6 deg(-2)). We tabulate accurate coordinates and photometry for each source, as well as estimates of the redshift and emission-line flux and equivalent width based on measurements of the digital objective-prism spectra. The properties of the KISS emission-line galaxies are examined using the available observational data. Although the current survey covers only a modest fraction of the total volume of the Bootes void, we catalog at least 12 objects that appear to be located within the void. Only one of these objects has been recognized previously as a void galaxy.
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The feasibility of a galaxy infrared slitless prism survey
Jacob P. Fugal and J. W. Moody
We examine the issues surrounding an IR slitless prism survey for galaxies with highly redshifted H to see if some of the next generation of IR instruments should have the capability to conduct such surveys. We model the galaxy and star surface density as a function of J, H, and K magnitudes to estimate field crowding with depth. Using data from the Subaru 8.2 m telescope and Infrared Camera and Spectrograph detector as a benchmark, we estimate the number of detectable galaxies as a function of telescope aperture size, object magnitude, and line strength. We find that while crowding need not be a major problem, it is still difficult for even a large telescope to obtain a useful emission-line galaxy sample in the J, H, or K bands primarily because of the high IR background and the faintness of the galaxies with H in these bands.