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MOUNT WILSON OBSERVATORY ASSOCIATION (MWOA)
P.O. Box 70076
Pasadena, CA 91117


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

03 Apr 2003
Contact: 

Dr. Paula Turner
CUREA Director
(740) 427-5367

Robert L. Eklund
MWOA Programs/Publications Chairman
(310) 333-3478


CUREA 2003 TO OFFER IN-RESIDENCE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
AT MOUNT WILSON OBSERVATORY AUGUST 11-23

The Consortium for Undergraduate Research and Education in Astronomy
(CUREA) will repeat its highly successful in-residence educational
program at Mount Wilson Observatory for the 14th time this summer,
from August 11 through 23, 2003.  The program is aimed at
undergraduate physics and astronomy majors, with junior or senior
standing, who are considering a career in science or science
teaching.

Staff and students will pursue a short on-site course in astrophysics
and observational astronomy using the historic facilities at Mount
Wilson. Instruments available to the students will include the Snow
Horizontal Solar Telescope, used in conjunction with a high-
resolution spectrograph and a unique atomic-beam solar oscillation
spectrometer; a 16-inch Meade LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with
CCD camera and SBIG stellar spectrograph; and the historic 60-inch
reflector, used by Harlow Shapley to discover the size of the Milky
Way Galaxy. 

The CUREA program will emphasize how our present understanding of the
Sun has been achieved and how it relates to the astrophysics of all
stars.  The emphasis will be on hands-on experience, using the
horizontal solar telescope and the other instruments.  Attention will
be devoted to many observable solar phenomena, such as sunspots,
granulation, limb darkening, important spectral lines, Zeeman
splitting of solar lines, the measurement of solar rotation using the
Doppler shift of a spectral line, and observation of the solar
5-minute oscillations.  Nighttime observing will extend to celestial
objects such as the Moon, planets, variable stars, clusters, galaxies
and other deep-sky objects.  Students will learn how to process CCD
images and spectra from the 16" telescope.  Discussions led by staff
members will deal with topics in astrophysics as well as the design
and use of the available telescopes and their accessories.  During
the second week of the program, each student will work on a special
project she or he has chosen. 

Additional activities will include an introduction to ongoing Mount
Wilson research projects, short presentations on important
contemporary and historical astronomical topics, special lectures by
distinguished astronomers, tours of research facilities on the
mountain, and field trips to JPL, Caltech and Palomar Observatory.
The tuition fee of $1550 covers all expenses during the two weeks of
the course, including room and board on the mountain. Students will
reside in Mount Wilson's famous "Monastery," home of resident
astronomers since the days of Hale and Hubble. 

Mount Wilson Observatory is the home of a group of telescopes that
have, for many decades, made important contributions to astronomy.
The Snow Telescope was the first major solar telescope in the world
and the first telescope to be installed on Mount Wilson when George
Ellery Hale founded the Observatory in 1904.  The 100-inch telescope
was used by Edwin Hubble to discover the expansion of the Universe.
The 60-inch telescope for many years explored how other stars that
look like the sun also behave like the sun in its 22-year-long
magnetic activity cycle.  The 150-foot and 60-foot solar tower
telescopes are still in daily use to study the magnetic field and
atmospheric motions of the Sun. 

Following the early tradition of Michelson and interferometry at
Mount Wilson, scientists from the University of California at
Berkeley has built an interferometer for very high angular resolution
studies of bright stars at infrared wavelengths, and Georgia State's
Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) has built the
world's largest optical interferometer array at Mount Wilson.

For more information about CUREA 2003, see http://www.curea.org or
contact: program director Dr. Paula Turner.  E-mail:
turnerp{at}kenyon.edu, phone: (740) 427-5367.  The application deadline
for the 2003 program is April 25, and applications are available
online at

http://hale.reed.edu/curea/apply.html.

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