National Geographic had this beautiful photo collection on their website. The photos are stunning, true to National Geographic style, and they really do a good job of showing the effects of light pollution.
Read more… • Posted in: astronomy
Okay, so let me preface this by saying, I am not a unix guru. When software needs to be recompiled to work on my mac, my first response is to go see if anyone else has done it already. That said, sometimes I have to dig into the guts of programs to …
Read more… • Posted in: astronomy
So, adding a WCS is not actually all that difficult. But in my experience finding the process clearly explained is more challenging. I finally found a process that works well for me (with thanks going to Kyle Johnston, U. Waterloo, for outlining the …
Read more… • Posted in: astronomy • Comments (1)
So, today I needed to perform a Kolmogorov Smirnov two-sample test, and I had to refresh my memory a bit on the details. Given that I just moved overseas, most of my notes are tucked away in Kansas City at the moment, so I turned to the web.
In Wikipedia-ing …
Read more… • Posted in: astronomy
I just remembered you'll need this beauty in order to run hfit.pro
I like to use IDL to make nicely formatted tables or listings of data to drop into, say, latex or other software. One of my pet peeves in IDL is that the numbers always give a large number …
Read more… • Posted in: astronomy
Here's a useful little script I wrote in IDL. It allows you to send it 2 arrays (x and y data) and then you can plot the data, and fit it with a Hubble profile:
y = I * (1 + x/r_c)^(-a)
where I, r_c and a are constants representing the vertical scaling …
Read more… • Posted in: astronomy
We are seeking a highly qualified candidate to examine and describe, both observationally and theoretically, the entire known universe. The ideal candidate will launch a vigorous research program in multiple fields of theoretical astrophysical research …
Read more… • Posted in: jobs
So, by default, OSX runs the bash shell at the command prompt. However, most astronomers tend to prefer tcsh. Probably this is because iraf expects tcsh. There are some excellent instructions on how to switch to tcsh at Mark Westmoquette's …
Read more… • Posted in: astronomy
From: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/06/24/669.aspx
Apparently we're only about four years from regular passenger trips to space.
Blue Origin is developing a reusable, vertical-takeoff-and-landing rocket ship called the New Shepard - a name …
Read more… • Posted in: astronomy
Today was the first full day of CASCA. All of the galaxy talks were today, so it was the main day for me, science-wise. After an exhorbitantly expensive breakfast at the hotel with my roommate,
(I've since found a Tim's) the day …
Read more… • Posted in: astronomy