[Dr. Kankelborg Pix]

Charles Kankelborg

Associate Professor

Office: Barnard 260C
Telephone: 406-994-7853
Fax: 406-994-4452
kankel@montana.edu


Charles Kankelborg
Department of Physics
Montana State University
Bozeman, MT 59717-3840

Weekly Schedule

The study of astronomy not only gives pleasure but is also extremely useful. And no one can deny that it admirably reveals the wisdom of God. Therefore, clever men who expend their labor upon it are to be praised and those who have ability and leisure ought not to neglect work of that kind. ---John Calvin

Research Interests

Current and recent projects

Movies

Through a NASA Supplemental Education and Public Outreach award, Scott Wiessinger has produced a 14-minute film called Rocket Scientists (click here for download options). The film explores the transition from high school to college, and shows students becoming involved in cutting edge scientific research with the MOSES rocket mission. Do you want to be a rocket scientist?

The MSU news office produced a movie about the MOSES rocket [4MB] [10MB].

SNHF student Scott Wiessinger produced a movie about coronal mass ejections [10MB] [40MB], featuring Piet Martens and me.

Background

I am a physicist with a background in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) observation of the Sun. My PhD work at Stanford University was with Art Walker's MSSTA rocket payload, an array of 19 EUV/FUV telescopes. I came to Montana State University in 1996 as a postdoc on the TRACE satellite program. I joined the MSU faculty in 2001.

The main focus of my current research is the Multi-Order Solar EUV Spectrograph (MOSES), an EUV instrument that is capable of simultaneous imaging and spectroscopy over a wide field of view. MOSES launched successfully on February 8, 2006 from White Sands Missile Range.

Here is my vita.

Teaching

I have taught Physics 101, 261, 262, 311, 317, 318, 331, 423, 566 and 567.

A presentation to our REU students: Nearly everything I need to know about Observing the Sun I learned from Halliday and Resnick.

Personal Stuff

Links:

Hobbies

Most of these are somewhat neglected.
The background is a SOHO EIT He II 304 Å image of the Sun with a large, twirling prominence taken on February 12, 2001. Prominences are clouds of relatively cool dense plasma suspended magnetically in the Sun's hot, thin corona. Prominences can erupt and break away from the Sun's atmosphere. This image shows ionized helium at a temperature of about 60,000 K. Here is a more viewable image.

Last Updated: Jan 17, 2012