David Sitar

Rankin "Go To" Astronomy Facility Director, Astronomy Outreach Coordinator; Education: BS - Eastern Michigan University MS - Eastern Michigan University

There are 8 included publications by David Sitar :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Evryscope Science: Exploring The Potential Of All-Sky Gigapixel-Scale Telescopes 2015 459 Low-cost mass-produced sensors and optics have recently made it feasible to build telescope arrays which observe the entire accessible sky simultaneously. In this article, we discuss the scientific motivation for these telescopes, including exoplanet...
An Experience With Astronomy Lab Development And Improving Laboratory Pedagogy 2015 1071 Optics can be a challenging subject for students that are not pursuing a science major. A well-organized lab exercise aids students in better understanding content and provides more opportunities to reaffirm the knowledge they obtained through lectur...
Human Subjects Research Training And PER 2010 204 We performed an informal survey of twenty randomly selected institutions distributed among the 4 tiers of the Carnegie classification system. We found that 60% of institutions relied heavily or exclusively on the modules produced by the Collaborative...
Imaging Emission Spectra With Handheld And Cellphone Cameras 2012 1300 As point-and-shoot digital camera technology advances it is becoming easier to image spectra in a laboratory setting on a shoestring budget and get immediate results. With this in mind, I wanted to test three cameras to see how their results would di...
Introductory Laboratory Visual Back And Camera Upgrade: Design And Implementation For The Rankin GoTo Astronomy Facility 2016 1148 A positive introductory astronomy lab experience is essential for recruiting new prospective majors and promoting an open attitude toward the sciences for general education students. Modern and user friendly equipment is needed in order to provide st...
Using Rspec In An Introductory Bright Star Spectroscopy Lab Activity 2018 1459 The premise of this activity (developed under the Smoky Mountain STEM Initiative Research Grant) is that introductory astronomy students who participate in every aspect of spectroscopic analysis—from image capture to calibrated, curve-divided creatio...
Using Stellarium To Cyber-Observe The Great American Eclipse 2017 1321 The Great American Eclipse is over. Somewhat sad, is it not? Individuals who were unable to experience the event on August 21, 2017, can now cyber-observe the eclipse with Stellarium (http://www.stellarium.org). In the authors’ opinion, it is fun and...
Visual Physics: Wow! That Was Taken With A Cellphone? 2014 224 This raw image of the Sun was taken with a Nokia Lumia 521 cellphone camera held to the back end of a 20-mm eyepiece inserted into a Coronado SolarMax II double stacked 60-mm Hydrogen-Alpha solar telescope. With cellphone camera technology advancing ...