Astronomical Image Processing in Undergraduate Education

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The Five College Astronomy Department will obtain 5 processing workstations for use by undergraduate students. The workstations will be used: (1) to develop laboratory exercises related to course work at the introductory and advanced levels; and (2) to enhance the research opportunities available to undergraduates in the department. Image processing was largely pioneered in astronomy, and it is now applied to a wide range of scientific and technical disciplines including geology, atmospheric science and medicine. Through the introduction of this hardware into astronomy lab courses, astronomy majors will be introduced to scientific analysis tools which have become as fundamental to astronomical research as the telescope, and the quality of laboratory exercises that they do will be substantially improved since they will involve processing of digital data obtained at the world's most powerful telescopes using state of the art instruments. For non-majors in our courses, the introduction of astronomical image processing provides a means to teach this basic scientific analysis tool in an exciting scientific context. Finally, the availability of image processing facilities to undergraduates will substantially improve their access to research opportunities within the department and improve the quality of the independent study and senior honors programs.