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Summer Visit - 2012 - HR4AGN

The summer visit to Caltech is 3-4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The HR4AGN team came to visit in August 2012. The core team educators attended, plus 12 students, and one additional scientist.  The scientist mentor is Dr. Varoujan Gorjian. IPAC staff member Jacob Llamas (SSC) assisted, as did Dr. Jean-Christophe Mauduit (SSC).

Quotes

  • [student:] [Real astronomy] is to find the mysteries of the Universe, and to solve the myriad problems that are there, and to solve them. I did it, and it was everything because on this visit we did a lot of work on Excel and it was just pure scientific research.
  • [student:] [This experience] made me love [astronomy] even more. It gives me even more of a reason to become an astronomer.
  • I spend a fair amount of time, just looking, enjoying, and observing the night sky. I have always thought that professionals somehow "use" the data that is generated by the bigger telescopes but our project has really given me a glimpse into the process, and how complicated that process can be. I can say that my respect for the professionals has increased quite a bit, especially given how hard a seemingly simple question can be to answer.
  • More gets done in this week than in all the rest of the prior time leading up to the trip.
  • From a teaching and mentoring view, I was happy to see and work with such motivated students and fellow educators.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2012 - HR4AGN