Monthly report for March

...has been sent to the Spitzer Science Center. Here is what was transmitted:

I am required by the Spitzer Science Center to post a monthly update on progress related to the Spitzer AGN project we proposed. This is the report for March 2005.

Since my last general communication to you about this project, the following things have happened.

The project was approved by the Spitzer Science Center director. He selected one of our four potential AGNs as our primary target (GTN #7, 4C 29.45) and we edited the proposal to reflect this change. After this decision, Mark Lacy reworked the AORs to refine the time needed to gather the data.

This message from Mark summarizes the change in the AOR:
... I went in and
juggled the MIPS exposure times to make sure we get a detection at 160mu
(the least sensitive wavelength). I've kept the total length of the AOR
almost the same (in fact it's 10s shorter), but the MIPS AOR changed

old: 24mu 3s x 3 cycles
70mu 3s x 5 cycles
160mu 3s x 5 cycles

new: 24mu 3s x 1 cycles
70mu 3s x 1 cycles
160mu 10s x 3 cycles

IRAC was fine as is.

The new AOR was attached.  Contact me if you want a copy.

The proposal has been sent to the scheduling team but as of this writing they have not contacted us. The optimum observing window is in May, therefore we expect to hear from them sometime in April.

In other news:

The project web page is up and running. The address is:
http://homepage.mac.com/dvhscience/SpaceAcademy/Projects/Spitzer/index.html

Jeff presented a talk at the Stockton Astronomical Society about the Teacher Observing Program and specifically this proposal. The presentation was well received and the amateur astronomers were invited to join the GTN and participate in the observations.

In April, both Jeff and Steve Rapp will be giving workshops on infrared science; Jeff at a local workshop within his district and Steve at the NSTA convention in Dallas.

Jeff's student Brielle Hinckley, a junior at Deer Valley High School, has started making telescopic measurements of the target object using the New Mexico Skies remote telescope facility. The TLRBSE remote observing program provided observing time, and most recently Brielle spent 3 hours observing the target using a variety of filters. A sample of one of these observations is posted on the web site and shows that 14" class telescopes can effectively measure this target. Other Deer Valley students are participating in the data reduction as an excercise.