• NASA
  • IPAC

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

  • The "real astronomy" we conducted was a process that included the exchange of ideas and mutual cooperation of others toward a common goal.
  • I hadn't realized astronomers spent so much time analyzing data (thought it was more automated) but after analyzing the data myself, I feel I have a better understanding of the analysis job, what it entails, and why humans must do it.
  • [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.
  • The best thing about the trip was being able to talk to professional astronomers and being able to understand every word they say.
  • [student:] The most surprising thing I learned was that Astronomers do not have to individually process all of the data they are interested in from raw data. I was unaware of the existence and availability of the various databases that exist.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2012 - HR4AGN