The Kepler Mission and Lenox Laser

NASA Kepler Mission

This special purpose space mission that has been proposed to NASA Headquarter's Discovery Program as a practical method for detecting Extrasolar Terrestrial Planets, that is, rocky and Earth-size.

The Lenox Laser Corporation fabricated a custom Starfield Plate for the Kepler Mission.

"The star plate has a large number of holes of various sizes (used to perform time-variant relative photometry) and they are placed in many locations across the field-of-view to support the suite of tests described earlier. The plate is made of 50-micron thick stainless steel and opaque (transparency of less than one part in a million). The hole pattern was drilled with a laser beam by Lenox Laser, with some holes as small as 3 microns in diameter (for the mv=19 stars).

There are 84 holes for the 9< mv <14 target stars in the uncrowded region of the plate. These are used to isolate the effects of faint background stars, bright stars, smearing, etc. Some of these have very nearby stars as faint as mv=19 to demonstrate that stars five magnitudes fainter than the target star are not a problem even when spacecraft jitter is simulated.

There is a crowded portion of the plate with 1540 stars having the same star field density to mv=19 as the actual Cygnus region to be viewed by the Kepler Mission. This region was used to demonstrate the ability to perform the high-precision relative photometry even in crowded fields." Quote from the Kepler Mission Website

Science Fair Competition of Maryland Interactive Links

Visit The Science Fair Competition of Maryland website to access many science interactive links for kids. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find links to a wide range of interactive science activities, such as, Lunar and Planetary Institute, Project Lite, Physics Education Technology, Optical Society of America, Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena, NASA Science for Kids, Kepler's Discovery, Nikon MicroscopyU, The Space Place, Optical Research Associated Optics for Kids, and Cool Cosmos. Each of these links has many fun and educational activities which will keep kids occupied and mentally engaged for hours!
The Science Fair Competition of Maryland is a non profit organization that depends upon the generous support of area merchants, such as, the Lenox Laser Corporation of Glen Arm, Maryland.

Science Fair Competition of Maryland - First Science Fair

The Science Fair Competition of Maryland promotes physical science education especially in the fields of light and optics to young people of the Baltimore Metropolitan area. The SFCM held its first science fair competition back in 2003. With the support of area merchants, such as, the Lenox Laser Corporation of Glen Arm, Maryland, the SFCM was able to hold another science fair competition in May of 2008 for a group of fifth graders from Greater Grace Christian Academy, a private school in Baltimore City. If you would like to give a financial gift or would like to donate equipment and other educational materials simply go to http://www.sciencefaircompetition.org and press the Sponsors button. All donations are tax deductible but, more importantly each gift is a great investment in the lives of young people and their education.