(Although posted by bwillman, this post was written by Miriam Fuchs)
My name is Miriam Fuchs, I’m a sophomore at Haverford, and working with Beth Willman this summer doing research on ultra-faint dwarf galaxies. Last Friday, our research team left INSC basement and headed to Jim Thorpe, PA, where we went whitewater rafting down the Lehigh River.
It was a beautiful day for rafting. First things first,: a necessary stop at Dunkin’ Donuts, where we fueled up for the day. After an initial “detour” (we may be good at finding dwarf galaxies, but finding the rafting site…..), we got to Pocono Whitewater, where we were given life vests, paddles, and safety instructions.
And then we were on our way! It was so relaxing just to be in the sun, soak up some rays, and battle some mini rapids along the way. Every so often, we were allowed to jump in the water and float around. One lesson learned that day: don’t mess with science folks when it comes to water splashing. Needless to say, everyone was drenched with water within the first 20 minutes. Midday, we stopped for a lunch of hot dogs, chips and lemonade. After that, the Willman group re-united for the last leg of the trip, and enjoyed a nice series of almost-rough rapids.
Before coming back to Haverford, we stopped off at Annie’s Ice Cream, where we indulged our sweet tooths and got milkshakes and sundaes. Yum yum. All in all, a great day!
Beth Willman, here. Last Wednesday, I spent the day visiting Swarthmore College’s astronomers: David Cohen and Eric Jensen. We had a great time talking about our own research, comparing notes on student research and teaching, and discussing the possibility of increasing the cross-pollination between Swarthmore’s and Haverford’s astronomy programs. (side note: I learned that Professor Cohen also loves squids, although I professed neither my own interest in squids and other sea creatures nor that my cluster of computers has a sea creature naming scheme, with the lead computer being named Squid.)
Swarthmore has a great astronomy program that nicely complements our own. Whereas Haverford’s expertise is in galaxies and cosmology, Swarthmore’s expertise lies in stars and planets. This led us to discuss ways to take advantage of these strengths by coordinating when we teach classes on X topic and by encouraging students to take classes at the other campus. We even very briefly mentioned the possibility that “trading” faculty for a class here or there could be more successful than trading students. In the Fall, Cohen will be teaching what should be a great Interstellar Medium seminar that meets Wednesday afternoons for 2.5 hours. (side note number two: the interstellar medium is a lot more exciting and fascinating than its name may initially lead one to believe). I intend to advertise this to Haverford students. One tricky bit about encouraging students to take courses at both campuses in astronomy is that it would be particularly difficult for athletes to take an afternoon class at the other campus, because they couldn’t get back by 4 pm for practice.
A final cool thing I learned about is a nifty gadget called a “SunSpotter”(tm). I’d love to get a handful of these to use in our Astronomical Ideas and Introduction to Astrophysics I classes.
Hi everyone, my name is Erin Boettcher and I’m an astrophysics major in Haverford’s class of 2012. Through the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium, I am spending the summer in a research experience for undergrads program at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. I am now three weeks into the ten week program, and I must say that it has been an excellent experience so far.
Along with my advisor, Dr. Steven Souza, and my research partner, I am working on the starting stages of a project called “H-alpha Monitoring of Emission-Line Stars in Young Clusters.” The project focuses on stars with spectral type Be, or rapidly rotating stars with one or more emission lines in their spectra. We are particularly interested in Be stars with H-alpha emission lines that are found in open clusters. Although these emission lines are known to vary with time, the mechanism behind this variability is not entirely understood. Using Williams’ 0.6 meter telescope, a CCD camera, and on-band and off-band filters, we intend to implement long term monitoring of such stars in order to better understand this aspect of stellar structure and evolution. Over the course of the summer, we hope to evaluate the project’s viability, select stars for study, begin initial observations, and establish effective methods of data reduction and analysis. Seeing a project built from the ground up is exciting to experience!
The Williams College campus has been a great environment for summer research so far. There is a great camaraderie not only among the students working in the astronomy department but among those working in other science departments as well. In addition to the eight students doing research in astronomy, there are over 150 students doing research in biology, chemistry, physics, computer science, and math. Students and professors make an effort to interact with each other both within and outside of their own departments, including weekly lunches accompanied by research talks, afternoon breaks to play Trivial Pursuit (students against professors — which is bad news for the students!), and friendly competitions between departments in activities such as ultimate Frisbee. We have also been trained to give weekly shows in Williams’ planetarium, so I’ll hopefully be giving my first show this week.
The view from the roof of the Hopkins Observatory
Overall, I’ve had a great start to my summer here at Williams. I know that there is a lot of work to be done over the next seven weeks, but I look forward to watching our project grow and evolve. Every morning when I leave my dorm, I am reminded of how lucky I am to be able to spend my summer on such a beautiful campus doing work that feels more like fun!
That’s it for now…best of luck to everyone else doing research this summer! 🙂
