This report, the Department's twentieth, covers the period September 1995 through August 1996. Reports from other years are also available. Spear spent a second year on leave to SSU's Information Technology department. The Department awarded 2 B.A. degrees and 6 B.S. degrees. There were 39 physics majors in Spring 1996.
Newtonian telescope is computer-controlled.
The system points reliably to within 1-2 arcminutes on the sky. Reliable photometry is feasible for objects as faint as 16th magnitude. Student Rachel Hansen has been assisting with this work. Guest observer observations to obtain additional data on this object near apastron were made with the ASCA, OSSE and RXTE experiments. Using new data from RXTE, work continues with Paul Hertz and Kent Wood from the Naval Research Laboratory on understanding the eclipses and orbital timing of the transient system EXO 0748-676.