The HEMP QSO Monitoring Project

The HEMP QSO Monitoring Project (QSOM) was created to monitor many high-redshift QSOs for the purposes of measuring their variability characteristics. In addition to determining their suitability as potential HET Echo Mapping Project targets, the QSOM Project will produce fundamental data on variability of QSOs at high redshift, which will be of sufficent interest to the astronomical community as to warrant publication.

The QSOM Project is carried out primarily by observers who graciously obtain a few images for us during their own observing runs. The scale of this long-term project is such that it would not be feasible were it not for the generosity of those observers. We are grateful for their help. Also note that to a large extent this QSOM Project is "undergrad powered", meaning that a significant fraction of the work is being done by undergrads.

Currently the observations are being obtained at 6 sites:
(1) The 0.8m (30") telescope at McDonald Observatory (in west Texas, ~200 mi SE of El Paso); (2) The Austin-Fellows 32" telescope at the Stull Observatory (~60 mi S of Rochester, New York) operated by Alfred University; (3) The 24" telescope at Red Buttes Observatory (9 mi S of Laramie) operated by the University of Wyoming; (4) The 0.94m James Gregory Telescope at St. Andrews University (Scotland); and (6) The 0.9m Queue scheduled telescope at CTIO (as part of NOAO's SSTO program).

Technical Project Information
(Note: when you view these files, the font chosen by your browser may not align the text. If you download the file, the plain ASCII text should look ok. If you need, I can make a nicely formatted PostScript version for you.)
 The observing instructions.
The list of targets and coordinates. targets and coordinates in postscript.
-->
The crosslisting of QSO names and HEMP number.
The observations log.

To the page holding all the FINDING CHARTS.

Contributors to the QSO Monitoring Project include:
 Bill Welsh, "Rob" Robinson, Margaret Moerchen, Greg Shields, Judit Ries, Marcel Bergmann & Pamela Gay (UT);
Patrick Young (Univ. Arizona), Dan Vanden Berk (Sloan DSS); Warren Skidmore & Rachel Street (St. Andrews University); Kunegunda Belle (University of Wyoming);
David DeGraff, Robert Gutermuth, Jesse Roberts, John Stull & Dave Toot (Alfred University);
Tod F. Ramseyer (University of Central Arkansas)

WWW pages & e-mail addresses:
 Welsh: wfw@science.sdsu.edu
Ramseyer: ramseyer@goethe.uca.edu
Skidmore: ws9@st-andrews.ac.uk
Belle: keb@tana.uwyo.edu
Stull: fstull@bigvax.alfred.edu
DeGraff: david@merlin.alfred.edu
Gutermuth: gutermra@bigvax.alfred.edu
Roberts: robertjo@bigvax.alfred.edu
Toot: Ftoot@bigvax.alfred.edu
HEMP/QSOM web page at Alfred University.. --->

The NL Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4051 taken with the PFC on the 0.8m telescope at McDonald Observatory. Its not a HEMP/QSOM target, but it's an interesting and pretty-looking AGN.

Back to the HEMP page.

This page was last updated on 2000 Mar 17