Summer Visit - 2023 - AGNatha

Quotes

• Real astronomy is developing a question, getting data to help answer that question, adjusting the question based on the data, getting more data, and eventually summarizing your findings in a paper, poster, talk, etc. And acknowledging that there is still probably more to learn about your question. Everything we did felt like part of real astronomy; working as a team, starting with background stuff (what we know about this idea already), using the archive to sift through loads of data, digging really deep into one thing then zooming out to make sure we haven't lost sight of the original question, making mistakes (and luckily catching them before too much time had passed).
• What we worked on does feel like real astronomy, even without the complex math. I can see parallels between what we worked and some of the published papers we have reviewed. I did not anticipate how much could be done with data that is just available to work with. In chemistry you basically need to create your own data to then evaluate, feels like astronomy the data is there and the task is figuring out how to use it.
• For me, the uncertainty associated with some of the data was surprising. In a chemistry context, where the researcher has control of the sample the data is much more direct, associating peaks in spectra with structure in the molecules. The idea that we are starting a project with a catalog of AGN, but are only 90% sure that the objects are AGN (R90) surprised me as I usually think of astronomy as much more mathematical and underestimate the differences in how data is collected compared to chemistry.
• The most interesting and important part of my week was seeing how the different databases can be used in conjunction to create a subset of astronomical objects with a specific set of characteristics. We certainly read about this in some of our background papers, but actually doing it brought the process to life in a different way than reading through the literature did.
• It was really challenging work to do myself, not to mention helping my 2 students learn how to do the work as well. We really needed time to work together in person, especially when using topcat. We needed time and space to discuss the project and really deeply understand what our goal was. I also feel like we really bonded through this process - both teachers and students.

Related Teams

• AGNatha/Gorjian