Category: prepare to astronomize

In which I observe an exoplanet transit, and explain how I fit a model to my observations. For a brief intro to, and some artsy pictures of, the Maryland Space Grant Observatory I’ve been starting to use, visit this previous post. What if I told you I observed a planet, orbiting a star hundreds of…

If there’s one thing I know about myself, its that if there’s a telescope in my vicinity I am going to try to drive it. I recently started grad school at Johns Hopkins University, whose Physics and Astronomy Department building is host to the Maryland Space Grant Observatory (pictured below). I’ve made some awesome friends…

when molecular clouds – large clumps of gas and dust within galaxies – become unable to support their own weight they collapse inwards into a cascading series of overdensities and clumps which then become stars. even if they can support themselves, collisions between clouds, supernovae, or other dramatic events can cause dynamical disruptions in molecular…

Luritja aboriginal astronomers have a classification system for by-eye observation of stars: Tjilkera (white) stars, Tataka Tjilkera (red/white), Tataka (red) and Tataka Indora (very red) [1, 2]. Astronomers today, thanks to Williamina Flemming and Annie Jump Cannon (among other Harvard Computers), use a rather opaque system of stellar classification called the Harvard spectral classification: OBAFGKM(LTY),…