Observational Astronomy with Professor Fred Walter Professor Walter has a number of research opportunities for students with an interest in observational astronomy. Students must have passed AST 203, and be willing to learn to program in IDL and use the LINUX operating system. "Through Stony Brook's participation in the SMARTS telescope consortium, we are continually obtaining new and unique optical images and spectra. The types of studies we are pursuing include:" long time series, both photometric and spectroscopic, on T Tauri stars, cataclysmic variables, novae, and chromospherically-active stars. intensive imaging campaigns to study stellar rotation in young clusters and associations. a uniform, deep survey of young clusters and associations in the southern Milky Way to study the initial mass function(s) and mass segregation in fairly massive associations. Undergraduate students have the opportunity to participate in the reduction and analysis of these data. Experienced students will be allowed to design research projects using the extant data. Advanced students will have the opportunity to propose for and obtain their own data using the SMARTS facilities, for independent research under the supervision of Prof. Walter. In addition, students interested in astrophysical spectroscopy can participate in the reduction and analysis of ultraviolet spectra of chromospherically-active stars from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer. Students have the opportunity to present their results at the Astronomical Society of New York meetings. Interested students should contact Prof. Walter at fwalter@astro.sunysb.edu November 2003