All the NITARP videos in one place

Intro to using the wiki

These were created to help all NITARP participants learn what the wiki is for and how to use it (for learning or contributing).

• Video overview of the Cool Wiki (~6 min)
• Video overview of how to edit the wiki (~10 min)
• Video overview of organization guidance (~4 min)
• Video overview with more advanced editing techniques (~6 min)

Bonus points if you can find the place in one of these videos where my cat meows.

Searching the literature

• Searching the literature (~10 min)

Getting plain text (or IPAC table files) into Excel

Much of the files that astronomers work with are plain text, which astronomers read into their own code (and spit back out from their code) with ease. If you don't program but still want to work with these files, you can read them into Excel and do calculations and plots from that platform. But you have to get them into Excel first.

• Video overview of how to import tbl (or other plain text) files into Excel (~10 min!)

Getting updated coordinates and checking images

If you have a paper in the literature that was done in the 1970s or earlier (even, for some papers, later), chances are excellent that the coordinates as reported in the literature are not as precise as you need them to be for working with 2MASS, Spitzer, and/or WISE data. How do you get better coordinates for these objects?

• Video overview of how to use 2MASS to get updated coordinates for a source from the literature (~3.5 min)

As part of this process of getting updated coordinates, you might want to actually check the images. This is always a good idea.

• Video overview of how to use IRSA's finder chart (~3.5 min)

Using the Spitzer Heritage Archive

These videos were developed with professional astronomers in mind, but they probably are ok for you too!

• YouTube QuickStart video (7.5 min).
• YouTube video, the long version (13.5 min).

Using the WISE archive

• This page includes all of the videos developed by IRSA for professional astronomers using WISE. I am linking to this page rather than the videos directly because (a) they are developed by other people here at IPAC, not necessarily me; (b) more are planned soon.

APT

The Aperture Photometry Tool (APT) was originally developed in the context of NITARP teams learning how to do photometry on Spitzer images. It can be used to do aperture photometry on nearly any FITS image.

• Video overview of APT, from installation through doing photometry. (~14 min)

Background astrophysics

• Video of a variety of blackbody curves, where temperature changes, and the locations are indicated for several common broadband filters. (~30 sec)

Using MaxIm DL

MaxIm DL is software that is very popular among the amateur community, and by extension, can often be found in classrooms. It is not free software. In 2011, NITARP teacher John Blackwell developed and kindly donated many training videos for learning how to use MaxIm DL. They are all linked from the Using MaxIm DL page.