CAREER: The Faint Interstellar Medium and Stardial

一项为期四年的计划将在伊利诺伊大学和全世界范围内加强天文学研究和教学。这项研究利用获得新的天文数据，优化了对银河系低表面亮度辐射的探测。研究和教学活动将利用机器人望远镜和万维网（WWW，“网络”）提供的新技术。研究活动的重点是银河系中微弱的星际介质。在氢α (h - α)发射线上观测到的整个天空的确定地图集将产生，其灵敏度将比该地区以前的调查高30倍。这个新的天空图集将揭示数百个新的天体，这些天体可能会被进一步研究。银河系星际介质中的许多电离源将被确定，具体的电离源将用光谱学进行深入研究。由于h - α发射与银河系中自由-自由发射有直接的物理关系，因此h - α发射是银河系中自由-自由发射的敏感示踪剂。H-alpha数据将允许移除银河系辐射对宇宙微波背景（CMB）数据的污染。银河系观测数据将用于改进MAP和普朗克卫星观测CMB任务数据的分析。通过消除数据中的杂散信号，消污将提高卫星CMB结果的可信度和灵敏度。h - α数据和CMB微波数据的结合将使整个天空中热电离介质的电子温度的测量成为可能。数据分析的结果将用于测试星际介质中旋转的带电尘埃颗粒的微波辐射的新理论。利用“星盘”将研究活动与教育活动结合起来。Stardial是一个自主的机器人天文相机系统，可以拍摄夜空图像。该系统是专门为通过网络教授天文学而发明的。Stardial为任何访问“WWW”浏览器的人提供小型望远镜观测能力。该奖项的一个目标是将Stardial项目扩展到其他大学和高中，并扩展该技术，以便可以在其他望远镜上使用。Stardial项目已经参与了对夜空进行为期两年的连续监测，至少有三所大学和一所高中使用了它。Stardial项目的使用将通过网络与现有的机器人望远镜连接起来。将编写网络接口的软件，并征求硬件合作者，即那些拥有机器人望远镜的人，参与Stardial活动。基于网络的接口将为机器人望远镜提供简单、可靠和经济的访问，以获取可用于教学和研究的数据。将会有一个软件程序来模拟每个望远镜的操作，让用户在使用实际的望远镜之前进行练习。该接口还将允许包括人工操作的望远镜。与变星和小行星相关的成功教学活动已经开发出来，这些活动将在网上推广和分发

A four-year plan to enhance astronomical research and teaching at the University of Illinois and throughout the world will be carried out. The research capitalizes on obtaining new astronomical data optimized for detection of low surface brightness emissions from the Milky Way Galaxy. The research and the teaching activities will take advantage of the new technologies that are available by using robotic telescopes and the World Wide Web (WWW, "the Web").The focus of the research activity is on the faint interstellar medium of the Milky Way. A definitive atlas of the entire sky, observed at the Hydrogen alpha (H-alpha) emission line, will be produced that will be 30 times more sensitive than previous surveys in this area. This new sky atlas will reveal hundreds of new objects, which may then be studied further. Numerous sources of ionization in the interstellar medium of the Milky Way will be identified and specific ones will be studied in depth with spectroscopy. Because of the direct physical relationship of the H-alpha emission and the free-free emission in the Milky Way, the H-alpha emission is a sensitive tracer of free-free emission in the Milky Way. The H-alpha data will permit the removal of contamination of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data by the Milky Way emissions. The data Milky Way observations will be used to improve the analysis of the data from the MAP and PLANCK satellite missions to observe the CMB. The decontamination will improve the credibility and the sensitivity of the satellite CMB results by allowing spurious signals to be eliminated from the data. The combination of the availability of the H-alpha data and CMB microwave data will allow the measurement of the electron temperature of the warm ionized medium over the entire sky. The results of the data analysis will be used to test new theories for microwave emissions from spinning, charged dust grains that are in the interstellar medium.The research activities will be integrated into education activities by using the "Stardial". The Stardial is an autonomous robotic astronomical camera system that produces images of the night sky. The system was invented specifically to be used for teaching astronomy via the Web. The Stardial supplies small telescope observational capabilities to anyone with access to a "WWW" browser. One objective of this award is to expand the Stardial project to other universities and high schools and to extend the technique so that it may be used on other telescopes. The Stardial program has already been involved in carrying out two years of continuous monitoring of the night sky, and at least three universities and one high school have used it. The use of the Stardial project will be extended by linking it to existing robotic telescopes via the Web. Software for the Web-interface will be written and collaborators with hardware will be solicited, i.e. those with robotic telescopes, to be involved in the Stardial activity. The Web-based interface will provide simple, reliable, and cost-effective access to robotic telescopes to obtain data that may be used for both teaching and research. There will be a software program that will simulate the operation of the each telescope to allow the user to practice prior to using the actual telescope. The interface also will allow the inclusion of human-operated telescopes. Successful teaching activities related to variable stars and asteroids have been developed and these activities will be extended and distributed on the Web.***