Rainbows are Everywhere

We spent the morning finishing a project from yesterday. Since it involved using software that none of us had used before, we again had a long presentation on how to use the program. 

Through the Diffraction Grating!

One of the programs we had to do had trouble opening up, so I ended working with Nikita to get the graph we needed. He and I compared the graph we made to graphs of other stars with varying temperatures. At first I was confused as to how we were supposed to tell the difference, considering at first they all looked the same. Once it was explained to me, we chose the graph that matched the temperature and wrote our reports.

What I really like about this class is that no one is afraid to ask questions. When we work on projects or are learning new programs everyone is willing to help each other and ask for help. It's a very comfortable environment and all the work is very social, as we're encouraged to work with each other on projects. 

After lunch we got to do more fun things, our instructors decided that after all the data crunching of the morning we needed something more interesting to look at. They gave us diffraction gratings to look through and lit up excited Hydrogen gas in the middle of the room. We looked for a long time, and eventually all ended up taking pictures through the gratings.

We looked at Helium next along with looking through red and green filters to see what it looked like. We had discussions about segments of sky we were shown pictures, as a way to understand luminosity and distant galaxies. Hearing different theories and questions while we discussed was helpful to understand how other people were thinking, and helped me dive deeper into the material.

At the library with Jahnvi and Kara, getting some reading done. Tomorrow in class we're supposed to be measuring the luminosity of the Sun!