Astronomy C

[bernard]

[lsolomey]

What things should we be looking for when researching the stars for this year? LAST YEAR they asked questions about the spectrum that planets were taken in, the constellations they were inside, and special things about the object. Is that hat they are looking for this year as well?

[AstroClarinet]

What things should we be looking for when researching the stars for this year? LAST YEAR they asked questions about the spectrum that planets were taken in, the constellations they were inside, and special things about the object. Is that hat they are looking for this year as well?

Hello!
My guess is that your research for DSOs will be fairly similar to last year's research. All those things you listed are likely to appear again.
Since the main topic this year is variability of low/mid-mass stars, I would especially focus on the variability of the objects (for the ones that are variable stars). This includes knowing the period, type of variable star/why they are variable, etc.
I would also especially focus on any research studies performed relating to the object. Although fewer of the objects this year have pages on the Chandra website about studies done on the object, there are still plenty of news articles describing studies about the objects.
Good luck studying!

[64015197]

Hi everyone, I am really struggling with calculating distances with variable stars and I haven't found any reliable resources on the web, would anyone please help me with the basics or recommend any resources? That would be great, I really feel confident about everything else (Stellar evolution, DSO...) except that.

[Adi1008]

Hi everyone, I am really struggling with calculating distances with variable stars and I haven't found any reliable resources on the web, would anyone please help me with the basics or recommend any resources? That would be great, I really feel confident about everything else (Stellar evolution, DSO...) except that.

I would very highly recommend using A Student's Guide to the Mathematics of Astronomy by Daniel A. Fleisch and Julia Kregenow. It helped me a ton when I was getting started with Astronomy. It'll help with a lot of the basics of distance calculations, like using the Distance Modulus. After that, a lot of the "calculations to find the distance to the variable star" stuff is just a matter of figuring out what type of variable star it is and then applying to appropriate period-luminosity relationship, which you can find through Google.

[lsolomey]

What things should we be looking for when researching the stars for this year? LAST YEAR they asked questions about the spectrum that planets were taken in, the constellations they were inside, and special things about the object. Is that hat they are looking for this year as well?

Hello!
My guess is that your research for DSOs will be fairly similar to last year's research. All those things you listed are likely to appear again.
Since the main topic this year is variability of low/mid-mass stars, I would especially focus on the variability of the objects (for the ones that are variable stars). This includes knowing the period, type of variable star/why they are variable, etc.
I would also especially focus on any research studies performed relating to the object. Although fewer of the objects this year have pages on the Chandra website about studies done on the object, there are still plenty of news articles describing studies about the objects.
Good luck studying!

Thank you. There isn't as much information this year on the DSOs I agree.

[fernanda036]

Were new galaxies listed?

[Jehosaphat]

Were new galaxies listed?

We don't normally study certain galaxies, but for some DSOs there are questions about which galaxy they reside in

[cryo]

Any predictions for next year's topic rotation?
I'm guessing something along the lines of supernovae and their remnants (black holes, neutron stars, etc) because a) they're cool and b) the SOINC gods seem to like them: https://scioly.org/wiki/index.php/Astronomy#Topics.

[Sapphire]

Any predictions for next year's topic rotation?
I'm guessing something along the lines of supernovae and their remnants (black holes, neutron stars, etc) because a) they're cool and b) the SOINC gods seem to like them: https://scioly.org/wiki/index.php/Astronomy#Topics.

Yes please! Neutron stars are one of my favorite things mostly because every time I think of them I think of neutron degeneracy pressure which makes me think of spaghetti because of this Kurzgesagt video that also contains a Sailor Moon reference. Black holes are also really cool, with the information paradox and how they also relate to spaghetti through spaghettification.

Anyway, looking at the wiki page, it tends to kind-of-cycle between type Ia supernovae, type II supernovae, variable stars, and the formation/evolution of various things. Maybe we'll see Type 1a Supernovae again next year? It's about time for that one to come back.

Personally, I'd really enjoy something about the universe as a whole, type Ib and type Ic supernovae, dark matter and energy, or relativity. A lot of tests ask about the universe anyway and those questions are always my favorite. And like you'd expect the universe to be really uniform because it's homogeneous and isotropic and the same forces act in the same way everywhere, but nope! There're galaxy filaments and that questionable Chandra study that was a DSO last year. Type Ib and type Ic supernovae is mostly because type Ia and type II have already both been done twice, and because massive stars are cool. Dark matter has a bunch of funny acronyms (WIMPs, MACHOs, SIMPs) but it honestly probably wouldn't be a very good topic. Neither would relativity but there's so much mind-boggling stuff like lorentz transformations and light cones and geodesics that I would love to have an excuse to put a lot of time into learning.