ARCSAT ID NUMBER: AS08

DESCRIPTIVE TITLE: Stellar Environments of the Nearest Red Dwarfs

PI: Michele Silverstein (GSU)

OBSERVER(S): Michele Silverstein (GSU), Todd Henry (GSU) and Tiffany
Pewett (GSU)

UNCERTIFIED/UNTRAINED OBSERVERS:

COLLABORATORS: Wei-Chun Jao (GSU) and Jen Winters (GSU)

CONTACT INFORMATION: (PI/OBSERVER email/phone)
silverstein@astro.gsu.edu (404-413-6024), thenry@astro.gsu.edu
(404-413-6054)

TIME REQUESTED: 7 nights

1. MAY 04-10 (note = first week of Q2, if possible)
2. MAR 16-22
3. MAR 23-29

7 nights are requested to observe ~100 stars, some of which will be
observed more than once to measure consistency between nights, and
eventually, observing runs.  Photometric standard stars will be
interspersed between science stars.  Any Moon phase is ok.

Note 1: Our first requested week coincides with the first week of
summer break, so all classes/exams would be completed by the PI.

Note 2: PI Silverstein and CoI Pewett (also requesting a week of
ARCSAT time) will coordinate observing to take advantage of weather
conditions in order to maximize the science.

INSTRUMENT: SurveyCam

FILTERS: VRI

COMMENTS: During 2014-Q3 we had 17 nights including 1 good night, 4
partial nights and 12 wipeouts.  Our luck in 2014-Q4 was a tremendous
improvement, when we had 7 nights, 2 of which we used to take data for
the main program, and 1 was used for a back-up program.  This leaves
us with a scorecard for our project to date of 3 good nights, 5
partial nights, and 16 wipeouts.

BRIEF SCIENCE JUSTIFICATION:  (restrict yourself to 1-2 paragraphs)

As part of the PI's thesis, we wish to gather high-quality VRI
photometry of red dwarf stars within 25 pc.  These data will be part
of a comprehensive search for substellar companions and circumstellar
disks around roughly 3000 red dwarfs within 25 pc.  The optical data
from this program are needed to evaluate the spectral energy
distributions (SEDs) of the stars, and will be used in tandem with
2MASS and WISE photometry to extend the SEDs to mid-infrared
wavelengths.  Many red dwarf members of the nearby star sample in the
northern hemisphere lack accurate parallaxes --- the proposed
observations will provide the photometry required to make distance
estimates good to 15% using the techniques in Henry et al. (2004).

In a 7-night run, we will target ~100 stars with magnitudes 6-18 to
continue our survey of red dwarfs in the solar neighborhood.  Stars
will be observed twice each to test repeatability.  Non-photometric
conditions will be used to survey individual stars for flaring
activity (a portion of Pewett's PhD thesis), measure magnitude
differences for multiples resolved in VRI, and to check separations
and position angles of binaries, astrometry that is useful for the
RECONS 25 Parsec Database currently being built as part of our survey
of the solar neighborhood (www.recons.org).