Welcome to our ZTF Summer Undergraduate Astronomy Institute Web site! Eric Bellm, the Caltech Project Scientist for ZTF and Bryan Penprase from Pomona College and Co-I on the ZTF project, have been working together on a program for astrophysics undergraduates working both at Caltech and at Pomona College, and a few of our affiliated partner institutions. The program is known as the “Summer Undergraduate Astronomy Institute” and is intended to help students learn about the science and technology surrounding their summer research projects, and to learn more about ZTF – the Zwicky Transient Factory. ZTF promises to be the premier instrument for discovering supernovae, variable stars and new asteroids, and this Institute will give you a great overview of techniques in time-domain astrophysics, observational astronomy and instrument development.
This year we are offering our second Undergraduate Astronomy Institute, and are happy to welcome students from Williams College, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and Yale-NUS College, Singapore to our Institute. The 2016 institute is scheduled for four days – June 20-24 and will begin on Monday, June 20 at Caltech with two days of talks, lab tours, and lectures, followed by a tour of the Big Bear Solar Observatory on June 23, and a day at Pomona College on June 24, with a chance for a hands-on workshop on time-domain astronomy and a planetarium show. Our NSF grant from ZTF is paying for all the expenses and we are hoping that the Institute will provide a great overview of astrophysics and also have a chance to learn more about what other undergraduates working in astrophysics are doing!
Our group includes group of 7 undergraduates working on SURF projects at Caltech, and 6 students working on SURP programs from Pomona College, and a student from Williams, UW Milwaukee, and Yale-NUS College. Highlights from the program include an opening dinner at Caltech with a dinner talk by Aditya Sood (Pomona Alum ’97), who produced the Hollywood movie “The Martian”, a night of visual observing with the Mt. Wilson 60” telescope, tours of Caltech instrument labs, and hands-on observing and data analysis clinics at Pomona College, and a day of solar astronomy at Big Bear Solar Observatory with Jay Pasachoff, one of the world’s leading solar astronomers.
More information on the program, the participants, and resources and datasets are provided on additional pages! Please let me know if you have any additional questions and welcome to the program!
Bryan Penprase
Frank P. Brackett Professor of Astronomy, Pomona College
ZTF, co-I, Caltech (bpenprase@pomona.edu)