9319670 Dennison The objective of this project is to image the faint Balmer-alpha emission produced by the warm, ionized, interstellar hydrogen. Digital images will be obtained covering a significant fraction of the northern hemisphere of the sky. The imaging system will consist of readily available components: a small focal-ratio camera lens attached to a high quantum-efficiency Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) camera; a narrow-bandpass interference filter placed in front of the lens will selectively pass only the H alpha line and reduce the noise contributed by the continuum sky background. The system will detect H alpha emission far from the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, and produce images of relatively high angular (arcminute) resolution. The system will be mounted at a dark site within easy reach of the Virginia Tech campus. Ultimately the resulting digital atlas will be made available to the astronomical community.
