Project area/S
- The Local Universe
- The Distant Universe
Project Details
We have recently installed the latest addition to the SPIRIT family, the SPIRIT 6 telescope, a 1-meter optical telescope that we plan to use for outreach, education and research purposes. More details.
We are looking for a student to help in commissioning the tele-scope! The work will be focused on collecting data with differ-ent filters (and potentially also using a spectrograph) and char-acterizing telescope performances such as atmospheric seeing, distortions across the field of view, sensitivity, etc. Observations will be carried-out mainly remotely (and the student will also have access to data already taken). There will be opportunity for at least one site visit as well. Most of the project will be fo-cused on the reduction and characterization of data quality. The key outcome of this studentship will be a manual that will be made available to SPIRIT6 users to help them in planning their observations. Depending on the student’s interest, the project will be tailored towards different kind of astronomical objects: e.g., stars, globular clusters, nebulae and/or galaxies.
Student Attributes
Academic Background
Basic knowledge of astronomy.
Computing Skills
Basic python knowledge (e.g., ability to read and write files and to make basic plots).
Training Requirement
Ability to handle astronomical data and to understand basics of astronomy observational techniques.
Project Timeline
- Week 1 Inductions and project introduction
- Week 2 Initial presentation and planning of SPIRIT 6 observations
- Week 3 Characterization of point-source sensitivity in r filter
- Week 4 Characterization of extended-sources sensitivity in r filter
- Week 5 Characterization of seeing and potential variations across field of view in r-filter
- Week 6 Extension of the above metrics to broad-band and narrow-band filters
- Week 7 “
- Week 8 “
- Week 9 Final presentation
- Week 10 Final report
