Week 3: Star Struck

Edward A -

Week 3 is completed everyone! And I can now say that I have coded the data for my first star! Becca gave us a code that she has been working on. All I had to do was change things within the code to match the specific star I worked on. Honestly, on its own, it didn’t require that much Python knowledge. However, whenever I ran into errors, my coding knowledge came into play and helped a lot.

The code would output a graph that we could compare with the data collected from NASA’s telescope, TESS, and compare it to the predicted data. With the two together, I had to change values to create a line of best fit. I did this for each sector that TESS recorded of the star. Most of the graphs had an overall fitting line of best fit; however, there was one that didn’t seem to line up well. The TESS data was far off to the left from the expected data. This threw me off and I spent awhile trying to figure out what went wrong. I looked over all the code and everything seemed right. Becca did say that not all the graphs would align perfectly, but even this felt way off.

I hoped to ask about it this Friday, however, we had to cancel our weekly meeting between Becca, Payton, Dr. Richardson, and me. I plan on meeting Becca on Monday or Tuesday to ask her about it and then see if we can fix that graph in any way or it may be one of those cases that won’t align at all.

Things are getting really interesting now and I look forward to working with more star data and hopefully get to use the telescopes soon.  I’ll check in with you all next week!

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    selene_r
    Hi Edward! It is super exciting that you were able to code data for a star! I am impressed with how you were able to solve your own errors with the knowledge you have. I can't wait to see what ends up happening with the graph. :)
    March 8, 2024 at 1:51 pm - Reply
    edward_a
    Hi Selene! Thank you so much! It has been a process but worth the learning experience!
    March 11, 2024 at 7:37 pm - Reply
    nathan_s
    Running into problems and figuring out solutions is the best way to learn! I am glad that you have been able to continue with the program for the most part though.
    April 9, 2024 at 1:04 pm - Reply

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