Dr. Bo Reipurth, at the University of Hawaii, has organized the "Variable Young Stars Optical Survey" (VYSOS), which consists of two identical 16 inch telescopes, in each of the northern and southern hemispheres (at Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii, and Cerro Armazones Observatory in Chile). The telescopes will be devoted to the task of systematically monitoring the most important star forming regions along the entire Galactic plane, to provide a synoptic view of early stellar evolution, in order to observe rare events that provide information on young stars as dynamic bodies. This award provides funding to employ graduate and undergraduate students to analyze and report on the large amount of data that the VYSOS project will produce.
Dr. Reipurth is part of a team that is preparing research projects, using the 2m Faulkes Telescope at the Haleakala Observatory, for local Hawaiian schools. He will integrate the VYSOS project, as a feeder for Faulkes Telescope projects, and provide lectures and mentoring on science related to the VYSOS project. The dataset will be made available to the broader community, allowing for additional data-mining studies by other investigators.
