In-class activity

Intro to DS9, looking at nebulae

Thursday July 24, 2008

Activity:
Split into groups working with 1 laptop/group. Got everyone set up to use DS9 to look at astronomical data. Walked through some examples of downloading (or opening) data, changing colormap, contrast/bias, and scale on image. Looked at "Mountains of creation" in optical and IR, and noted that we could both see through the dust in IR, and also see the warm dust itself (heated by hot young stars). Looked at Tarantula nebula in both optical and X-ray, and made a multi-color image combining the two. Found that the hot X-ray gas filled cavities within the nebula. Noticed that a cluster of X-ray emitting stars was right at the heart of the nebula.