The Stellar Detective – reading the clues in light curves
Presenter(s): Tom Richards
Affiliation(s): RASNZ, VSS, ASA, RAS
Session details: Saturday, 2016-03-26 03:00:00, LT101
Abstract
Capturing a light curve of stellar eclipses, transits, or occultations – by stars or planets – can often be done in a single night with electronic imaging. Although sophisticated software is available to help you derive astrophysical information from the light curve (by trial and error), a thoughtful contemplation of it can yield a very great deal of information about the system. This presentation will show how.
Biography
Tom was founding director of Variable Stars South, which turned out to be a good way of learning about variable stars. On the occasional clear night that weather south of the Great Dividing Range affords, he does CCD imaging of various variables from his home dome (while asleep in bed) then tries to find time to analyse the results. He was once a university computer science professor, but that didn’t help much in writing the scripts he needs.