Charged-coupled devices (CCDs) are being increasingly used as sensitive imaging devices on small optical telescopes. The high quantum efficiency and low noise of these array devices permit their use as faint object detectors, so that a small telescope equipped with a CCD camera is operationally equivalent to the largest astronomical telescopes of a decade ago. Colgate University will acquire a high sensitivity cryogenically cooled CCD array imaging system for use with its campus 16-inch telescope to train students in techniques of high accuracy spatial and intensity measurement. Use of the CCD camera system will enable students to work with recent technology such as electronic array detectors, cryogenics, electronics, microcomputers, computer interfacing, computer programming, image analysis, as well as fundamental astronomical research. There are a wide range of astronomical projects which can be conducted by undergraduate students with this instrumentation: imaging of extended or faint objects such as galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters to study their structure and composition; search for the study of transient events such as supernova in distant galaxies, flaring in cataclysmic variable stars and dwarf novae, and motions and changes in appearance of comets and asteroids; monitoring of the optical continuum spectrum and time variability in stars, quasars, and active galaxies. With a device capable of sensing faint astronomical objects, students will become involved in research, using recently developed electronic instrumentation, which is representative of projects being conducted by professional scientists.
