Galaxy Identification in the Taurus Field

This project is not directly related to the IC 2118 research. However, as with the IC 2118 project, it is an attempt to involve high school students in meaningful, real-time, astronomical research. A 44-square-degree area of the Taurus cloud was mapped by the Spitzer Space Telescope using the IRAC and MIPS cameras. The primary reason for mapping the Taurus region is to identify YSO's. There are many resolved galaxies in this field that have been captured. Having trained students analyze these images and identify galaxies serves two purposes. First it will allow the primary research team to more easily distinguish candidate Taurus association members from resolved galaxies. And second, where galaxies lack classification data, students will assist by providing thumbnail images at multiple wavelengths and offer a Hubble Sequence classification recommendation based on their analysis of the data.

The Spitzer data is publicly available, because the Taurus program is a Legacy project, but this project also has many many Gigabytes of supporting optical data, which is proprietary, and which the team has generously agreed to share with the students.

This area of the Wiki is devoted to information and discussions concerning this ongoing analysis of the Taurus field.

Useful links:

• General description of Legacy projects in general
• Available legacy products for the Taurus team
• General, simple page on Taurus project
• General introductory information on galaxy classification using Spitzer data

Cale McClintock Log

......CALEMCCLINTOCK 1333 EST.....

Oct. 18th - 2:30 pm - 3:55 pm (85 minutes) - My group and I went over the project’s wiki and I created a login name and password for it.

- 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm (60 minutes) - I created my Galaxyzoo.org account. Afterward, I proceeded to complete the initial quiz on typing galaxies available on the website, which I passed with 100%. After, I began to type the galaxies on the website.

Oct. 20th - 12:05 pm - 3:25 pm (200 minutes) - During this time, and the time spent for my next three logs, I practiced typing galaxies on Galaxyzoo.org.

Oct. 24th - 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm (120 minutes) - See Oct. 20th

Oct. 30th - 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm (60 minutes) - See Oct. 20th

Nov. 4th - 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm (240 minutes) - See Oct. 20th

Nov. 13th - 12:05 pm - 1:00 pm (55 minutes) - Mr. Spuck taught me how to find specific galaxy types in a deep space image taken by the Hubble Telescope. This exercise was meant for practice only; we had to pick out two to four examples of each galaxy category and from that data, we had to create a spreadsheet compiling it all together. - 1:00 pm - 1:40 pm (40 minutes) - The team met with Mr. Spuck and discussed our trip to the AAS Conference in Texas.

Nov. 27th - 12:30 pm - 1:40 pm (70 minutes) - In this hour and ten minutes, I learned, from Mr. Spuck, how to go in and rename the CFHT Images we will be working with. We need to rename them so we can easily find which sector of the galaxy they are in.

- 4:00 pm - 5:10 pm (70 minutes) - During this session, I managed to finish my Hubble Image spreadsheet.

Nov. 30th - 12:45 pm – 1:40 pm (55 minutes) - I started renaming image files taken from the CFHT Telescope during this session. Along with this time slot, the next four are also applied for renaming.

Dec. 1st - 6:50 pm - 12:00 am (310 minutes) - See Nov. 30th

Dec. 2nd - 12:00 am - 12:35 am (35 minutes) - See Nov. 30th - 11:30 am - 2:00 pm (150 minutes) - See Nov. 30th - 7:00 pm - 8:15 pm (75 minutes) - See Nov. 30th - 8:30 pm - 11:30 pm (180 minutes) - During this time, I started preparing my log sheets for the AAS Conference.

Dec. 3rd - 12:30 pm - ( minutes) - I worked more on pulling my log together and becoming more organized.

[END OF CALEMCCLINTOCK POST.]

Hi Cale - this is Luisa ... are you sure you're working with Hubble images? And here's another question to get you thinking. You noted that you're renaming the images to figure out "which sector of the galaxy they are in". How big are all of these images you're working with? Are they the size of, say, a quarter held at arm's length? or a pea? or a sheet of notebook paper? (bonus question: how big are Hubble images, on the same scale?) --Rebull 15:39, 4 December 2007 (PST)

Hi Luisa! I realize now that I'm working with are from CFHT...not Hubble. Sorry! Also, the images' size is a mystery to me. Mr. Spuck just explained the "fist width=ten dgrees"...which i thought was VERY interesting! I'm not sure how big the images are realtive to degrees, but Mr. Spuck is going to show me the conversions later! 13:43, 5 DECEMBER 2007 (EST)

--Rebull 11:16, 5 December 2007 (PST) HI again Cale - Well, I'll give you a hint re: the images -- just something to think about until you meet with Mr. Spuck later. What are the units of right ascension? what are the units of declination? And if you really want to make your head hurt while you wait, look at a regular globe of the Earth, and the latitude and longitude on there. How big is (e.g., how long would you have to drive to cover) 15 degrees of longitude near Ecuador? Is it the same as it is in northern Canada? What about latitude? Do you see how this is going to matter when you are thinking about how much area the astronomical images cover in RA and Dec? [end]

--Cale McClintock 13:03, 6 December 2007 (PST) Luisa, to answer your quiz, Right Ascension and Declination are measured in arc hours/degrees, arc minutes, and arc seconds. also, Mr. Spuck talked to me and showed me the conversions and such to change the amuont of pixels to the number of degrees. basically, what it came down to was that one of our images is 1/16th by 1/8th of the width of your index finger...held at arms length of course. pretty small if you ask me. so, its basically the size of half of the width of a #2 pencil's lead [graphite]. thats just my guess though.

--Rebull 17:06, 10 December 2007 (PST) So yes, you got the point - these are small fields of view! And to think that for professional astronomical cameras, that's a BIG field of view! Hubble's field of view with WFPC2 (the most famous instrument) is about 2 arcminutes on a side. Yes, arcminutes. Spitzer's imaging cameras have a single field of view of 5 arcminutes on a side, which is HUMONGOUS for infrared cameras! It is tough to make good astronomical-quality CCDs that are big enough to cover a large field of view - in fact, the CFHT images are actually small ARRAYS of CCDs. However, every cameraphone or other digital camera you buy helps push along CCD technology, and eventually that does have a positive effect on astronomical CCDs -- even though an astronomical CCD is a different sort of thing than what you find in a commercially available CCD camera, some of the technology (industry) developments do help with making bigger and better astronomical CCDs. But now you understand why I was asking this stuff, when you noted above that you were keeping track of which "sector of the galaxy." These are all in the same "sector of the galaxy"! :) [END]

12/4/07_1255 est

......CALEMCCLINTOCK 1255 est......

I dont know what to do on here.

What exactly am i supposed to be doing?

[END OF CALEMCCLINTOCK POST.]

... DANIELLEYEAGER 12/04/07_1326 EST

You should be posting your progress and any questions you have.

[END OF DANIELLEYEAGER POST.]

12/04/07 1352 est

UPDATE IN HOW TO POST PLEASE READ

--Dani 10:53, 4 December 2007 (PST)When posting, rather than typing your name and time, simply click the icon above the Subject/Headling square that looks like a squiggle. It is the second icon from the right. Click that before you start your post, it will post your name date and time for you. and then at the end of the post, simply type [end]

--Amccool 12:00, 4 December 2007 (PST)Hey this is my first time posting am I doing it right? Um as far as progress I am working on renaming the images that did not get burned to my disc correctly, I am also trying to finish my outline of chapter 14 and then begining chapter 15 to complete my hours. If this post looks ok please let me know. [END]

--Amccool 12:05, 4 December 2007 (PST)Me again Dani do you want me to post every single thing that I have done with Spitzer in here to show my hours? [end]

--Jbutchart 16:52, 4 December 2007 (PST) My flash drive is being retarded, I'm trying to load everything on here but it's not working. I'm going to continue taking notes on chapter 14 & 15 soon. I clicked that squiggly thing. I hope it works. [END]

--Jbutchart 17:36, 4 December 2007 (PST)https://coolwiki.ipac.caltech.edu/images/4/4b/Emspec.jpg
I figured since we were talking about this in Mr. Spucks room yesterday, we could use it on here. Going to upload my notes to the Wiki tomorrow.

--Dani 07:24, 5 December 2007 (PST) Your posts look great. I assume you're starting to pick up fairly well how to operate the wiki? ALEXIS - You do not need to type up your entire log sheet, but if you wish to have it on here, you may do so. JENNIFER - Good use of graphixs! Deffinatly try to do graphics in paint to have visuals along with the notes. [end]

--DanielleYeager 09:54, 5 December 2007 (PST) You just need to post about the progress you are making. What exactly you have accomplished, what gave you trouble, any little tips or anything you have. Take a look at both Jennifers and Alexis' posts. It's not as if your life depends on what you post, just let us know what it is you have done, how you did it, so on and so forth. [end]

--Cale 10:10, 5 December 2007 (PST) So i finally finished renaming the renaming messes that were made. ugh. It was tedious, but im glad that its done.

--DanielleYeager 10:18, 5 December 2007 (PST) Alright, now that you know how to post, remember you need to be posting individual threads with their own titles. Also, check the new addition to the post about the wiki poster that I put on your Galaxy page. And remember to use -->[end]

--Rebull 10:45, 5 December 2007 (PST) Cale, if you are looking for something to do, I buried some questions for you in your first posting above... :) [end] updated a second later, literally: oh, i think we were editing the same page at the same instant....

12/5/07_13:45 (EST)

--Cale McClintock 10:48, 5 December 2007 (PST)

After Mr. Spuck cleared up the whole "wrong telescope" deal, i found this website, which is for the telescope we do use.

http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/

pretty interesting. [END]

--Rebull 16:37, 5 December 2007 (PST) Hi Cale - I'm glad you sorted out the CFHT stuff! :) The CFHT is only one telescope of the many that are used in this project. In addition to CFHT on Mauna Kea (Hawaii), you have data from SDSS (and that telescope is located at Apache Point, New Mexico). And, of course, you have Spitzer data, as well as data from 2MASS. (There were two 2mass telescopes, both of which have been decommissioned and moved, but one was on Mt. Hopkins in Arizona, and the other on Cerro Tololo, Chile.) There is a large group of scientists working on the Taurus project, and we also have data from XMM and FCRAO, but I don't think I gave Mr. Spuck all of those data along with the optical and infrared data -- I don't have the images myself from those telescopes. [END]

--Amccool 10:44, 6 December 2007 (PST)I finally finished all of the renaming that was screwed up today. I will post my log sheet up here as soon as I get a chance. [END]

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