Blog supporting outreach to Tiverton High School

General astronomy-related discussion (publicly viewable)
User avatar
mark.m
President
Posts: 298
Joined: Fri Feb 03, 2017 1:13 pm

Blog supporting outreach to Tiverton High School

Unread post by mark.m »

Lee Cusumano does double duty as Tiverton High School's chemistry and astronomy teacher. I've been working with her astronomy classes the past few months. She brings an enormous amount of enthusiasm to these classes, and I've been bringing some hands-on experience and knowledge of how observational astronomy provides the measurements that fuel the science of astronomy.
One of the things I'm doing with these students is what I'm calling "adopt-a-star", where I've chosen a single interesting star to measure between now and the end of the school year in June. We've got posters in the classrooms with images and graphs and stuff, and have augmented those with an online blog where I'm chronicling my experiences with this star. Feel free to follow along with the blog, located at https://adoptastar.home.blog/.
Mark M, AJ1B
Portsmouth, RI
Celestron 14" and Meade 10" SCTs
QHY268M + SBIG ST-9
GM2000 (10Micron)
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) observer code: MMU
User avatar
Apollo XX
MSSF Coordinator
Posts: 2785
Joined: Sun Jul 11, 2010 8:11 pm

Re: Blog supporting outreach to Tiverton High School

Unread post by Apollo XX »

Mark, thanks so much for sharing this project with us! I remember when this star system was announced and the probability of a collision, and then the disappointment at the discovery that there was a miscalculation and that the merger was in fact not imminent. I remember words used like 'never before have we been so sure that we are able to predict a relatively precise timeline of such an event'. I was ready and waiting for the blinding light to arrive! :lol:

It's so nice to see you engage these students on this project and I'm really looking forward to following it. I'm really interested in seeing the outcome of your investigations into this system. Perhaps you and your group can be the next to announce something big about it! Thanks again for inviting us along for the ride.

Mike

PS - I could have told you that star was going to set :P
"The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the heavens." - Anaxagoras
User avatar
mark.m
President
Posts: 298
Joined: Fri Feb 03, 2017 1:13 pm

Re: Blog supporting outreach to Tiverton High School

Unread post by mark.m »

Thanks, Mike. Just goes to show that there's something that you lose when you stare into the computer monitor too much instead of going outside and looking up into the sky.
lightcurve.jpg
lightcurve.jpg (57.06 KiB) Viewed 1936 times
This is the lightcurve that I've collected for this star. I've updated the blog with the lightcurve and my first timing measurement for this system. (Orbital period of 10 hours, 59 minutes, 22.57 seconds.) To my delight, even with a lot of data scatter due to observing right down to the horizon, the timing seems reliable to within a few seconds, which should be enough to show a spiral (or not!) before the end of the school year.
Mark M, AJ1B
Portsmouth, RI
Celestron 14" and Meade 10" SCTs
QHY268M + SBIG ST-9
GM2000 (10Micron)
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) observer code: MMU
Post Reply