April 16, 3:00 pm P-148  (Notice special time)  Fred Ringwald, CSU Fresno: "Amateur Instrumentation: Are We Professionals Being Left Behind?   (Instruments and Science Programs at Fresno State's Campus Observatory)"

Fresno State has a new Campus Observatory, on the grounds of the Downing Planetarium.  It is well instrumented, although nearly all the equipment is commercially available to amateur astronomers.  This includes
self-guiding CCDs; a self-guiding spectrograph; an autofocusing, temperature-compensating focuser; a tip-tilt adaptive-optics guider; and interferometric light-pollution filters that allow color imaging.

Current science programs include:
(1) Target-of-opportunity observations of the eruptions of classical novae.
(2) Observations simultaneous with Hubble Space Telescope on the low states in the magnetic cataclysmic variables AM Her and AR UMa.
(3) Observations simultaneous with Chandra X-ray Observatory and Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer on high-state magnetic accretion in AM Her.
(4) Variable star searches, particularly for hot, high-gravity stars that heat cool companions that have undergone common envelope evolution.
(5) Timing the spins and the orbits of magnetic cataclysmic variables, particularly intermediate polars.
(6) Searches for transits of extrasolar planets.