Pomona College Astronomy

This image of M36 was taken at the Bracket Observatory in Claremont, CA with the Pomona College 22 inch telescope, using a SBIG ST6 CCD camera. The cluster M36 is 4140 light years distant, and contains over 60 stars fainter than 9th magnitude. Jen Lauer, and Joel Aufrecht took this exposure as part of the astronomy 101 course at Pomona College.

Overview of Pomona College Astronomy Mosaic Home Page

Welcome to the Pomona College Astronomy Computer, a Macintosh Quadra 800 running A/UX and Mac OS. On this page is a complete description of the Pomona College astronomy program, a tour of the Brackett Observatory and our 40 inch telescope in the nearby San Gabriel Mountains, and a set of links to some of the most interesting astronomical internet sites in the world. We also have a set of images from JPL online, including images from the recent comet impact on Jupiter.

NEW! Astronomy image of the month

View a spectacular gravitational lens as viewed by Space Telescope.

Astronomical Facilities at Pomona College

For more than 90 years, Pomona College has been a leading institution for both teaching and research in astronomy. Located in sunny Southern California, Pomona College operates the Brackett Observatory in Claremont, and a 1.0 meter telescope at JPL's Table Mountain Observatory in Wrightwood. In the beginning of the century, astronomers working at Pomona College under the direction of Frank Brackett conducted exacting positional observations of stars, and measured the locations and shapes of sunspots. Since those years, the college has built an extensive set of facilities, which include on-campus Frank P. Brackett Observatory, which includes 22" and 12" telescopes, and a horizontal solar telescope. Pomona College is the oldest of the Claremont Colleges, and the astronomy program is a cooperative program with Harvey Mudd College and the Joint Sciences program of Pitzer and Scripps Colleges. The astronomy program at Pomona College is offers an astronomy concentration for physics majors, which includes both observational and theoretical courses in astronomy and astrophysics. The program has access to several of its own telescopes, and also has a number of networked UNIX workstations for image processing.

Computer Tour of the Frank P. Brackett Observatory

In addition to the on-campus facilities, Pomona College has a 40 inch telescope which is located at the Table Mountain facility, operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The 40 inch telescope is a computer controlled instrument, with a liquid Nitrogen cooled Photometrics CCD camera available for use.

Computer Tour of the 40 inch telescope at Table Mountain

The astronomy program is housed in the Millikan building, which includes a planetarium and an image processing lab. The Millikan building is dedicated to Physics, Math and Astronomy, and has state of the art laboratory and classroom facilities. The physics department has six full-time tenure-track faculty members, several of whom are doing research in fields related to astrophysics.

Information on upcoming sky shows for the public, and the Millikan science building in Claremont

Some recent astronomical images taken in Claremont

Astrophysical Research Interests of Pomona College Physics and Astronomy Faculty

Gallery of Astronomical Images

The recent repair of the Hubble Space telescope has provided astronomers with glimpses of the edge of the universe. Below is a deep HST survey field which was the result of combining 7200 seconds of HST observations. In the picture are many faint galaxies, in fact literally hundreds, which have never been seen before. A typical faint galaxy in this image is probably at a redshift greater than 0.5 which makes it further than 5 billion light years. The image is 748 x 768 pixels covering 74.8 x 76.8 arc seconds.
More information on the deepest HST images yet taken can be found at the Princeton parallel HST survey web page , which features strips of deep HST images which being used to see the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early universe. The project is run by Dr. Ed Groth, and Claremont College alumnus Jason Rhodes (now a Princeton graduate student) is responsible for processing many of the digital images in the project.
Astronomy is fortunate in producing some of the most compelling images of any science. For a sample of the stunning imagery in astronomy, you can examine some of the images produced by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as a result of recent planetary missions.
A large gallery of images from JPL is available in this page, which shows a range of planets, a black hole, a protogalaxy and moutains from our own planet as viewed by spacecraft.
The recent cataclysmic collision of the comet Shoemaker-Levy has captured the imagination of scientist and citizen alike. You can view the most recent images from the comet collision obtained from JPL.
A complete comendium of all the comet images from the recent collision with Jupiter may be found in the JPL library of images , which includes images from Chile, Hawaii, Arizona and other observatories.

Internet Astronomical Resources

With recent developments in archiving, networking technology, and the CCD digital imaging cameras, it has become possible to complete entire research projects without even visiting an observatory. Every branch of astronomy and astrophysics is becoming increasingly dependent on computers. As a result, the astronomical community enjoys some of the most extensive network services of any sciences, and a sample of the online astronomical resources is included below.

For general purpose browsing of the world of internet, the best single source might be the Yale Computer Science Index of web and internet resources, which has been adapted to a local file to speed up access to its dizzying array of internet resources.

One of the best library home pages for astronomy can be found from the Space Telescope Science Institute Library, which has abstracts in astronomy, links to other astronomical libraries, and preprint listings for all astronomical journal articles.

The NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Server allows for several types of searches, including author, keyword, and natural language query.

You can examine the resources of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories with the NOAO internet guide which has information about the solar observatory, observatory reports, and telescope information.
Also available on the network are the new HST Corrected Images from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
You can make finder charts from POSS plates at the ISIS center , which accesses the entire sky digitally. This is a way to observe the skies without ever using a telescope!
A very extensive listing of astronomical resources can be found in the STScI astronomy internet resources guide including ftp sites, wais and gopher services for astronomy.
You can access the newsgroup "sci.astro.research", which has many interesting postings about astronomy research on its world-wide web home page.
Many online services are offered by Caltech's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, including NED (the NASA Extragalactic Database) and IRSKY (an online IR survey tool for the entire sky). The IRAS online directory provides a useful summary of these astronomical research tools.
Spectacular online images of the comet impact (more of them!) are available fromthe new products home page at JPL.
You can also access the extensive archives at Cambridge with the Cambridge Astronomical Directory. The online services allows for access to datasets from the RGO and Maxwell telescope operations.
If you like image processing software, there is a nice demonstration of the IDL language at the IDL mosaic site.

New Baby Pictures! (updated 2/95)

Dr. Bryan Penprase has just become a father, and as an insufferably proud new parent, has posted baby pictures on the home page. For those friends out in cyberspace, Bidushi and Bryan say thanks for the great presents and good wishes, and stay tuned for future pictures of baby Shanti. Click on shanti to download neato baby pictures of Shanti, the new daughter of Bryan Penprase, and Bidushi Bhattacharya, born on March 15, 1994.

Further information

If you would like more information on the astronomy program at Pomona College, you can contact the department office at (909) 621-8724 during normal business hours. You may also send email to Dr. Bryan Penprase at the addresses below.

penprase@shanti.pomona.claremont.edu

POMONA::BPENPRASE

For more information on Pomona College, a small liberal arts college which offers excellent programs in both the sciences and humanities, you can also access the Pomona College Web Page .

For more information on the Multicultural Cosmology project, check out the Ancient Cultures home page , being built by the Freshman Seminar class.

Questions, Comments on our Programs? Use the Hypertext Feedback Form .

Test of Form Support. Use the NCSA test form .