Investigating Periodic Variable Stars with a Robotic Telescope

Brody Beuker, Ethan Bowes, Tyson Brown, Rielly Castle, Kelly Christopher, Josh Fenwick, Joshua Foschia, Gurpiar Gill, Mayu Imamura, Zac Jalbert, Ivan Kocsis, Jessi Lipoth, Alex Magnus, Keaton Mollberg, Chidi Nwangwu, Alana Regier, Dawson Reid, Mikayla Rychel, Andrew Sotkowy, Amanda Stehwien, John Thuringer, Maia Wallis, and Daryl Janzen Variable stars are extremely valuable in astronomy because […]

Determining the Approximate Age of NGC 2298 Through Photometric Analysis

By Rielly Castle, Alexander Magnus, and Ali Ahmed Abstract Globular clusters are important astronomical objects that provide deep insight into the early evolution of the universe. Our study utilizes photometric techniques to measure the apparent B and V magnitudes of the stars in the globular cluster NGC 2298. We produced a Hertzsprung Russell diagram of […]

USask Observatory is on Skynet!

… or, How the University of Saskatchewan Got its First Robotic Telescope Nearly two years ago, in July 2018, I attended the joint Astronomy Teaching Summit & Robotic Telescopes, Student Research and Education conference in Hilo, Hawaii. It was a wonderful conference in a beautiful place, and I was fortunate to have a few extra […]

Galaxy Formation in the Early Universe

By Rina Rast for ASTR 310 This post aspires to present a description of how the first galaxies formed in the early universe. Since this topic is broad enough to warrant an entire textbook all to itself, this post will focus on key information and theory. The discussion requires some basic knowledge about specific stages […]

The Cosmic Microwave Background

Do you know that snowy screen you get on your television when you are between two channels? It’s just fuzzy white noise and it always made your fingers staticky when you moved them across the screen. Did you ever wonder what that actually was, or what caused it? The answer isn’t as mystical as anything […]

The Bright Between the Stars

Introduction When we look up at the night sky, we see stars amongst a sea of black. At a time when the standard model of the universe was both infinitely large and old, a man named Heinrich Olbers wondered why the sky wasn’t a sea of white starlight. Who was this Olbers guy, anyways? […]

M5 Cluster’s Overall Spectral Type by means of a H-R Diagram

BY: MAZZ GHANI, JINGXI GAO, YUGANT MOHAN, DAWSON WIEBE, SAHNGOO KIM The purpose of this project is to investigate the absolute magnitudes and surface temperature of stars in the cluster M5 and create an H-R Diagram. The information that will be extracted from our project will help uncover important information about the stars plotted in […]

Investigating the possible effects of the VW Hydrae system due to the theoretical existence of a black hole or Neutron star in the system

By: Juan Manjarres, Kody Manstyrski, Kelsey Peppler, Mitch Dressler, Ricardo Rheeder Introduction to the VW Hydrae System VW Hydrae, first discovered by Cuno Hoffmeister in 1929 [1] within the Hydra constellation, is an Algol-type eclipsing binary system with an evolved secondary component. The system portrays a rapid period increase due to the possible presence of […]

Imaging the Cosmos

At the Usask Physics rooftop observatory, astronomy students have access to equipment used for astrophotography. This equipment includes a Celestron 11″ Rowe-Ackerman Schmidt Astrograph telescope and ZWO ASI 294 MC Pro camera. The following images were taken by astronomy students Brennan Rodgers and Rina Rast, along with astronomy professor and observatory director, Dr. Daryl Janzen. […]

The U of S Observatory 1970 – 1985: A Personal Perspective

By Ron Waldron (This article originally appeared the May 2019 issue of Saskatoon Skies, the RASC Saskatoon Centre monthly newsletter. Reprinted here with permission from the author.) My connection with the U of S Observatory began in May of 1970. I was a grade 12 student about to graduate from Aden Bowman Collegiate when one […]