Concordia University, Irvine
Concordia University—located in a beautiful campus nestled in the idyllic Turtle Rock hills area of Irvine, CA—just a few minutes away from the Pacific Ocean, is home to the Keck Center for Astronomy. The Keck Center is comprised of three computer-controlled optical telescopes: a Celestron C-14, a PlaneWave 17”, and a custom-built 17”. A 4” Lunt solar telescope and an assortment of excellent smaller portable refracting and reflecting telescopes round out the Keck Center’s telescope inventory. All of larger telescopes on the Concordia campus are housed in ExploraDome enclosures. Astronomical imaging, photometry, and spectroscopy are special research emphases of the Keck Center. Concordia University is also affiliated with three other observatories: the Hacienda Observatory located in Hacienda Heights, CA; The Manzanita Observatory located in Live Oak Springs, CA; and the Great Basin Observatory located in Great Basin National Park near Baker, NV. Concordia’s main spectroscopic inventory is comprised of Shelyak fiber-fed spectrographs. Special solar and stellar spectroscopy research initiatives at Concordia are also supported by the advanced spectroscopic instrumentation of Concordia’s Chemical Physics Laboratory. Concordia is strongly committed to offering a diverse range of astronomical research opportunities in which students are actively involved in every aspect of the research endeavor: data collection, data analysis/interpretation, literature review, presentation at scientific meetings, manuscript preparation, and publication.