Science background

Young Stars

General information

• Studying Young Stars - More information on the study of young stars, by Dr. Luisa Rebull (2011)
• Finding cluster members - Spitzer in particular is so sensitive that it easily sees things at the far reaches of the Universe with only a few seconds' integration. When studying clusters of stars, one of the first major goals is to figure out which objects are truly cluster members and which are not. This page has a discussion of how to find members of young clusters in general. by Dr. Luisa Rebull (2017)

=*Pre-main sequence evolution - Basic introduction to pre-main sequence evolution. By Dr. Luisa Rebull (2012)

• Taurus catalog - The Taurus Molecular Cloud is one of the nearest star forming regions at only 140 pc away. This page has a catalog of fluxes for these young stars. By Dr. Luisa Rebull (2012)
• General Background on young stars - By Dr. Luisa Rebull (2007)
• Stars and How They Form - videos with sign language - By Anna McCartney and Lyssa Matsche (2011)

Project-specific information

IC2118

IC2118 was one of the very first teacher teams.

• Introduction to IC2118
• Specific IC 2118 information
• Monitoring young stars - The IC 2118 team embarked on a campaign to monitor some of the candidate TTauri stars that we found using Spitzer data. They used ground-based telescopes to see if the stars vary.
• Monitoring T-Tauri Stars using the Remote Observatories
• Generating Light Curves - APT and Excel
• Kitt Peak YSO Research Project
• Galaxy Identification in the Taurus Field

Old pages collected here for the moment

• Introduction to M81
• Studying Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons
• Tidal dwarf galaxies
• Galaxy Classification

• Lynds Target Selection

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Working with star-forming regions

Working with L1688 -- A sample analysis thread using Lynds 1688, developed in the context of the Lynds Cloud team (2008). This is n entire chain of analysis for Lynds 1688 (a star-forming region), start to finish. Working with CG4+SA101, an adaptation of "Working with L1688", with specific application to that project in CG4+SA101, from 2010. Working with the BRCs, a further adaptation of those pages, with specific application to that 2011 project. Note that each one of these is more or less 'frozen' after the corresponding class graduates, so for the most current links, explanations, details, please see the most recent one, though there are copious links back in the chain to the earlier versions.

Studying Variable Stars

More information on the study of variable stars, light curves, eclipsing binaries, etc.

Studying AGN

More information on the study of active galactic nuclei (AGN).

Pages on things you can study with Spitzer

Studying Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons: Many astronomers use the Spitzer Space Telescope to detect or study "polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons," or "PAHs" for short. What are these things? In short, rings of carbon, like the grunge on your grill. But what else are they, and why are they important?

Studying Young Stars: Stars begin their life in a cloud of gas and dust (a nebula). Gravitational forces cause the nebula to start to condense. Because longer wavelengths can more easily pass through the cloud of gas and dust, these objects can be better studied in the infrared than at shorter wavelengths like optical.

Etc.... Many more things can be studied with infrared and Spitzer, but we haven't written those documents yet!