Integrating remotely accessible, single dish radio telescopes into an introductory astronomy curriculum gives myriad opportunities to students for observing a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum beyond the visible range.  While radio telescopes can probe the thermal and non-thermal emission of objects (e.g., planets, star formation regions, supernova remnants, pulsars, and active galaxies), telescopes at radio wavelengths are especially powerful spectroscopic tools, which can give observers the ability to probe the composition and relative motion of sources from their spectral lines.  This technique can be applied to many different sources in the Milky Way’s ISM and extragalactic sources.

In this workshop, we will teach participants how to execute spectroscopic observations with a 20-meter radio telescope tied to UNC Chapel Hill’s Skynet Observatory Network (located at the Green Bank Observatory).  We will observe the hydrogen hyperfine emission line at 21-cm wavelength (HI line) to study the velocity profile of select galaxies to determine their radial velocity and interpret their spectra to rotational dynamics to estimate their mass.  Our targets will include Andromeda, which is resolvable with the 20-m telescope, and other unresolved edge-on spiral galaxies.  Pre-observed data will be provided; however, participants will have an opportunity to set up their own observations.  While the 20-m telescope is in the Northern Hemisphere, the addition of the University of Tasmania’s radio telescopes will soon provide full sky coverage for conducting spectroscopic observations of HI and other spectral lines.