350 micron observations of local IRAS galaxies using SHARC-II

The cosmologically significant population of dusty galaxies detected at sub-mm and mm wavelengths by SCUBA and MAMBO have played a central part in many of the discussions at this workshop. Obtaining their redshifts is critical in understanding their role in galaxy formation and evolution, but this is a challenging task. Significant progress has been made by obtaining spectroscopic redshifts of the subset of sub-mm galaxies detected in deep radio images, but other groups advocate a photometric redshift approach. Such methods rely on understanding the Spectral Energy Distribution of the galaxies under study, but these are not well characterized for even the well-studied nearby Infrared luminous population. Observations at short sub-mm wavelengths, previously difficult until the commissioning of SHARC-II at the CSO, can be used to better constrain the dust properties of these galaxies.