Enhancing the Book "Coloring the Universe" to Serve Undergraduate Education

做强《着色宇宙》一书服务本科教育

• 批准号: 1523583
• 负责人: Travis Rector
• 金额: $ 2.48万
• 依托单位: University of Alaska Anchorage Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-15 至 2016-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1523583&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Enhancing; Book; Coloring; Universe; Serve

The Principal Investigator and coauthors Kimberly Arcand and Megan Watzke are writing "Coloring the Universe," a book that will provide a behind-the-scenes look at how color astronomical images are made by professional observatories. There are a number of coffee table books showcasing beautiful astronomical images, but none of them focus on how the images are made (astrophotography). Books that do describe image-making techniques are primarily "how to" books intended for amateur astronomers and do not describe the underlying science. "Coloring the Universe" will explain how color-composite images are made, how they are used by scientists for visualization purposes, and how they are shared with the public to highlight new scientific discoveries. The book will also be unique in featuring primarily NSF-funded telescopes and the images made with them. Support from this grant will allow the authors to enhance the book so that it will be more useful as a teaching tool at the undergraduate level. They will add content that provides more information and examples, and they will create a Web site that contains image-making tutorials, data from telescopes with which students can make their own images, and an image gallery allowing students and the public to share their work.Astronomical images offer an engaging introduction to important topics in astronomy, such as how telescopes and charge-coupled devices (CCDs) work, narrowband filters, and multi-wavelength imaging. Many colleges that have access to small-aperture telescopes and CCD cameras have laboratory exercises in which astronomy students make images of astronomical objects. These labs serve as an important tool for teaching how telescopes and CCDs work, while doing it in a fun, visually appealing way. With its enhanced content, "Coloring the Universe" will be a valuable resource for teaching not only how the professionals make images, but why scientists make them the way they do. The tutorials on the Web site will be incorporated into introductory astronomy classes at the University of Alaska Anchorage and will also be presented to instructors in astronomy education groups, such as the Research-Based Science Education (RBSE) group.

首席研究员和合著者 Kimberly Arcand 和 Megan Watzke 正在撰写《为宇宙着色》一书，该书将提供专业天文台如何制作彩色天文图像的幕后花絮。有许多咖啡桌书籍展示了美丽的天文图像，但没有一本关注图像的制作方式（天文摄影）。描述图像制作技术的书籍主要是针对业余天文学家的“如何做”书籍，并不描述基础科学。 “为宇宙着色”将解释彩色复合图像是如何制作的，科学家如何将它们用于可视化目的，以及如何与公众分享它们以突出新的科学发现。这本书的独特之处还在于主要介绍美国国家科学基金会资助的望远镜以及用它们拍摄的图像。这笔赠款的支持将使作者能够改进本书，使其作为本科阶段的教学工具更加有用。他们将添加提供更多信息和示例的内容，并将创建一个网站，其中包含图像制作教程、学生可以用来制作自己的图像的望远镜数据以及允许学生和公众分享他们的作品的图像库天文图像以引人入胜的方式介绍了天文学的重要主题，例如望远镜和电荷耦合器件 (CCD) 的工作原理、窄带滤光片和多波长成像。许多拥有小口径望远镜和 CCD 相机的大学都会进行实验室练习，让天文学学生拍摄天文物体的图像。这些实验室是教授望远镜和 CCD 如何工作的重要工具，同时以有趣、视觉上吸引人的方式进行。凭借其增强的内容，“为宇宙着色”将成为宝贵的资源，不仅可以教授专业人士如何制作图像，还可以教授科学家为何以他们的方式制作图像。该网站上的教程将被纳入阿拉斯加大学安克雷奇分校的天文学入门课程，并且还将提供给天文学教育团体（例如基于研究的科学教育 (RBSE) 团体）的教师。