Acronyms and Vocab and Our Proposal, Oh my!!

Acronyms and Vocab

What do these mean? Here is the start of a list, fill in the answers right next to the words! Add more words/acronyms to the list!

Aperture Radius
Background Annulus
Julian Day
Janskys
Luminosity
Intensity
RA and Dec
Galactic coordinates
APT - Aperture Photometry Tool
DS9

2MASS - Two Micron All Sky Survey; the name says a lot, it is a collection of images covering the entire sky at the 2 micron wavelength of infrared (which is shorter wavelengths than our Spitzer data, so closer to the visible spectrum). Some of its goals include cataloging all of the detected stars/galaxies and detecting brown dwarf stars.

SIMBAD - Set of Identifications, Measurements, and Bibliography for Astronomical Data; this is a database of astronomical objects beyond our solar system.

IRAC - Infrared Array Camera; takes images of the 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, and 8 micron channels of infrared. The data we are studying came from this camera in these wavelengths while Spitzer was still cool.

IPAC - Infrared Processing and Analysis Center; the name says exactly what it is, and it's located at CalTech!

IRAF - Image Reduction and Analysis Facility; a program for analyzing IR images and data. It reduces images into pixel array form, which I assume means that the pixels can be rearranged somehow into a better format.

reduction - I still don't quite get what the word reduction means, I believe it means that the data collected from photons hitting the individual pixels has been sent through some complicated mathematical formualas to get rid of bad data (noise). Perhaps one of you has a better explanation? --Peggy Piper 19:09, 1 August 2010 (PDT)


I think IRAF is pretty important. Check the WZ Sge paper-IRAF is referenced at the bottom of some page. I think it somehow takes the extremely convoluted counts obtained by IRAC? and then presents those observations as a pretty image of 256X256 pixels. Or perhaps that is what BCD means? I/we should read about this. Here is a url http://www.physics.hmc.edu/Astronomy/Iphot.html I don't know it there are better ones. My belief was that IRAF was what our mentors use rather than APT. I thought IRAF worked in batch mode whereas APT was for hands on work. But IRAF also seems to have a hands on option as well?--Richard DeCoster 21:11, 3 August 2010 (PDT)
BCD - Basic Calibrated Data - But what does that mean? How is it diff from reduced data? I'm not playing teacher, I really don't know:) --Peggy Piper 19:09, 1 August 2010 (PDT) -
Nor do I. It is data that has somehow been "blessed" by the powers that be. I think we asked about this in our lengthy conference call back in March, but my notes don't help me out much. --Richard DeCoster 21:11, 3 August 2010 (PDT)

Our Proposal

Here is the link to our Spring 2010 proposal http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/teacher_research/r4-variab/variabProposal.pdf Read through our proposal. Below, list a few things that you totally understand as well as some questions you have.