Home Page of Kirk Korista

An artist's rendition of astronomers' best guess as to the environs of a quasar (the brightest object at center) situated at the very center of a birthing massive galaxy in the early history of the universe. (Artist: Martin Kornmesser, STECF)

• Professional Interests: the spectroscopy of extra-galactic and Galactic emission line sources: active galaxies and Quasars, cataclysmic variables, nova shells, H II regions, planetary nebulae - observations and numerical simulations of photoionized gas.

• Undergraduate Education: B.S. in Astronomy 1985, University of Illinois, Department of Astronomy
• Graduate Education: Ph.D. in Astronomy 1990, The Ohio State University, Department of Astronomy
  
• Postdoctoral Experience: Carnegie Observatories (1990-1992), Space Telescope Science Institute (1992-1994), University of Kentucky (1994-1997)
• Present Employment: Associate Professor of Astronomy, Department of Physics, Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

• my CV & Publications
• a little story about me

• Astronomy popularizer and professor Jim Kaler's Shapley Visiting Lectureship at WMU (November 2001)

• My anonymous ftp site is here
• Quasar Emission Line Grids
• HST/FOS Spectra of NGC 5548 in ascii format (April-May 1993 International AGN Watch campaign)
• Go to the Cloudy home page; numerical simulations of gaseous nebulae

Astronomy Courses I teach:

• Physics 1040:An Introduction to the Sky & Solar System
• Physics 1060:An Introduction to Stars & Galaxies
• Physics 3250:An Introduction to Astrophysics

Other sites of interest:

• My index of web sites in astronomy, etc
• "Astronomy Picture of the Day" is found here
• My personal page on the issue of light pollution
• Phil Plait's BAD ASTRONOMY page. Common misconceptions in astronomy are straightened out.
• This is a MS-Excel spreadsheet that allows the user to create a scale model solar system (in planetary diameter and distance from Sun), once a scale size of the Sun's diameter is entered. Scaled distances to nearest star, nearest galaxy and galaxy cluster also computed.
  
• My set of links discussing science vs. pseudoscience, and issues regarding science & religion.
  
• The Kalamazoo Astronomical Society page is here
• See the Earth having a bad day
• What's new at the Space Telescope Science Institute?
• The American Astronomical Society
• Astrophysics preprint service and abstracts at Harvard/NASA ADS
• News from CNN, the PBS Newshour, or the BBC

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