Physics & Astro
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Research Overview Research experience doesn't need to be with an established group. It is often possible to do research on your own, under the guidance of a faculty member who has some knowledge in the area. These opportnities are best suited to fairly advanced students who have a strong academic record. Contact your advisor or another faculty member to discuss this option. The College of Charleston Scientific Research Poster Session is a great way to share your research efforts with others, especially those outside of the department. It is held every spring, usually in April. Posters summarizing individual and group research projects are displayed on the first floor of the Science Center and many people walk through to catch up on the latest research here at the C of C. You stand by your poster to answer questions and impress them with your knowledge and professionalism. This is an excellent prelude to presenting at other professional meetings, including the South Carolina Academy of Sciences annual meeting.
Our computer lab is equipped and maintained by the department for the use of our students. The "inner sanctum" (room 104a) has additional computers and internet connections for research, e-mail, and net surfing. The computers are loaded with general use software, and specialty software for more advanced users--Mathematica, LaTeX, IDL, etc. There is also Astronomy simulation and research software which is used by classes and individuals.
Several of our faculty and their students are using unix computers in their research. Dr. Neff has established anetwork of unix workstations for astronomical research. Drs. Neff and Penny are using a variety of packages for the analysis of astronomical data from ground- and space-based telescopes. Their students are learning how to use the common astronomical packages (e.g., IRAF, AIPS, XSPEC) and programming languages (in particular, IDL and many associated procedure libraries) as well as learning the unix operating system. Dr. Neff, and his students, are operating a 0.5 meter telescope in the Virgin Islands (as well as the local 0.4m telescope remotely (and robotically) using the facilities of the advanced computing lab. They are developing a system to control and use these telescopes in real time as part of the general education astronomy labs. Dr. Preyer manages a network running the Linux operating system. He is using them as a parallel processor to solve problems in computational physics. Dr. Lindner and his students, along with Dr. Neff, have installed the UNIDATA software package on one of the Sun Workstations. This is available for meteorology and atmospheric physics research.
A 0.4 meter Cassegrain telescope manufactured by DFM Engineering is housed in an observatory on the roof of the Science Center. While the site is subject to city sky glow and local "seeing" distortions, the telescope can be conveniently accessed for use in introductory astronomy labs. It uses the full SoftwareBisque suite to control the telescope, dome, and instrument package. The instrument includes a 1024x1024 Apogee Ap6EP CCD and a 6-position filter wheel with standard 50mm UBVRI filters. Dr. Neff is using these instruments and others to maintain a continuing undergraduate research and training program using this telescope. Our instructional laboratories in Astronomy use over 30 Celestron 8" telescopes and roof-mounted pedestals for observations during laboratory periods. We also recently acquired 30 more Meade 8" GPS equipped telescopes. Our portable telescopes, including a computer-controlled 10" Meade telescope, and a 7" Meade, if you need to head to the boonies with a telescope. The Department is part of a four college consortium which operates an Automated Photometric Telescope at the Fairborn Observatory located in Washington Camp, Arizona. This telescope, which has just undergone extensive renovation, is the primary research tool of Dr. Bob Dukes in his program of studying pulsating variable stars. Several student projects each year are completed with data from it. It is operated by sending computer instructions via the internet, then retrieving observational data the next day, also through the internet.
The College of Charleston is a consortium partner, led by Dr. Neff, with the University of the Virgin Islands to maintain and operate an automated 0.5 m Cassegrain telescope at Etelman Observatory on Crown mountain on the isle of St. Thomas. The telescope, a robotic turnkey system designed by Optical Mechanics Inc., was delivered in June 2003 and is set for installation in late October 2003. First light is anticipated in early November. The telescope is equipped with a large format (2048 x 2048) CCD for imaging and a 12 position filter wheel with UBVRI filters. Research in Physics & Biomedical Optics
Our research equipment is mostly in the fields of medical uses of lasers, laser optics, nonlinear optics, holography, and spectroscopy. We have several infrared, red, and green cw lasers in the tens of mW range, and a pulsed nitrogen laser which operates in the ultraviolet. We have an assortment of spectrometers and related equipment for measuring ultraviolet, visible and infrared emission, absorption, transmission and scattering.
Meteorology & Atmospheric Physics We have three Texas Weather Instruments Inc. automated 20 foot meteorology towers which record temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, rain rate, and solar radiation. Also, Licor radiation instrumentation is being purchased. We are involved in the Charleston Harbor Project, the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program, the National Science Foundation West Antarctic Ice Sheet Initiative, and are affiliated with UCAR, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the managing organization for the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colorado. Our computing facilities feature prominently in our meteorology research and teaching program. |
Research Facilities 
Updated: 28 May 07 - jlw |