Chelen Johnson
The goal of SHIPs (Searching Herschel Images for Protostars) is to find and identify stars in the earliest phases of formation in NGC 281, a.k.a. "the pac-man nebula". These stars will help us understand the history of the star formation process in that region.
...students, given an interesting task, could stay on task for hours at a time.
I think that the most surprising thing about it was how young everyone was! I absolutely did not expect that, maybe because the amateur community is so much older by comparison, and is mainly composed of retired people.
It is an eye opening and life changing experience for the participants.
