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Project Selection Day

List of all projects and teams

See the list of teams and targets at

By the end of today, each team will be officially set with its target(s). Moreover, any teams which plan to share a target with another team must declare their collaboration. Ideally, there will be only 8 (or maybe even 9) different teams.

How much time will you need?

The goal is for all teams to acquire enough images of their target that they can perform the analysis required to determine some physically meaningful property. For example, if group A is studying an eclipsing binary star, they should acquire enough data to allow them to determine the period of the star; as a bonus, they might also place some constraints on the color (and so the temperature) of the two components. So, if the period of their star happens to be 8 hours, they would require at least 8 hours of coverage; even better would be 12-16 hours, allowing for some duplication of the light curve. 



  Q:  What is the physical characteristic you are hoping
           to determine?


  Q:  How much time on the telescope will you need?

Are there special dates?

By "special dates", I mean two different things, each related to particular days when your group might (or might not) want to observe. Please consider the range from Feb 29 to Apr 15 for the following questions.

dates when you MUST observe
Groups observing exoplanet transits have very particular times when they _must_ observe their targets: the times when the planet is passing in front of its host star, causing a small dip in brightness. For each exoplanet target, such groups should look up, and write down, the list of all dates and times between Feb 29 and April 15 when a transit occurs.

dates when you CANNOT observe
Most people have some fixed commitments which would prevent them from working long hours at night; these could include early morning classes on some days of the week, or jobs outside of school. In addition, some students might know in advance when they will be away from campus for field trips, athletic events, visits to family, etc.

Ideally, all the members of a group would be able to visit the observatory together in order to operate the telescope and camera. So, please work out, if you can, a list of dates when the all members of the team would not be available. 



   Q:  Are there special dates when your team MUST observe?


   Q:  Are there any dates when your team could NOT observe?

For more information

Creative Commons License Copyright © Michael Richmond. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.