My Brain Hurts

Today was Duygu's birthday so we had a little party downstairs during lunch for it. After which I got some help from Paul regarding the program I have been working on...turns out that we are most likely use a formerly created program that will be formated from MatLab. At 2:30 I went to see a PhD. defense...lets just say it will the last one I'm going to for a while. The speaker was very good and comical at times but the whole thing made my head hurt rather bad. So I won't be in work for 7 days due to Scouts so no news from me for a while...

Lazer,Tazer, Blazer...and My Personal Favorite Michelle!!

Today I worked on writing a code that would let me be able to disregard the spectral lines in my graphs that I created. Before that I helped Duygu with her laser problem and found out that Katie has to redo her lab to see if she gets similar results on a different machine.

Trumped!!

Today we started with going to the visual perception to get a tour of the lab and setup. I then had a meeting with Dr. Robinson about my project with the spectra graphs. I found out that the graphs I made were backwards...I found out that instead of making linear data on log-log graphs I was suppose to make a linear graph of log data. So I spent the rest of the day working on that and fixing the program...which is a tad harder than one might think. We went to Java's and found that Jake's class nearly doubles our Insight lab personnel. So we took up the cafe at Java's. I also was able to get vengeance on the vending machine...I was able to finally get Mike & Ike out of the vending machine on the first floor so touche!!

T-Shirts...Wait We Wear T-Shirts??

Today...hmmm...well for starters it FRIDAY!!!! Not that I'm excited or anything *shaking in anticipation*. So today I started by first meeting with the other interns where we had bagels and a guest speaker. Dave, the guest speaker, talked about remote imaging which was really cool but I think I was a tad more happy to be eating a bagel with cream cheese...it was still a cool presentation and it was very easy to understand. So then we were late to our meeting up at the insight lab but it was all good anyways...I finally got the idlstartup.pro to work some how. So then I had a meeting with Dr. Robinson where he cleared up what I had to do. I started on adding another column to my data and having to redo most of it but that wasn't that bad. I went upstairs to get some more help with the program from Paul. It turns out that to graph a log-log plot on IDL is very difficult especially when your data doesn't fit the whole decade. So we ended up having to make our own tick marks for the graph because the points fell between two tick marks. So after that I went and had lunch with Emma and Liz at Cross Roads...the Orange Chicken there is interesting but I can't eat too much or I would have gotten sick :P We came back and I finished making the graphs and all that good stuff. We then found out that our T-shirts from forever-ago were in so I hustled upstairs to get mine. We then proceeded to parade around campus looking intimidating in our matching shirts. Jake was more than trigger happy with his camera and thus took MANY pictures and posted them on Facebook...you should take a look. So we came back...honestly we were all hyped up and wanted to play outside...but alas work comes first :'( So I ended the day with a meeting and a trip to see Harry Potter!!!

And Then There Was IDL

Today I came in late again because of driver's ed but don't worry I'm done with that not that I'm excited *smiles really wide*. But I will be glad that tomorrow I will come on time because I seem to miss a lot of stuff in our morning meetings when I'm not here. I worked on the project of finding the distance of the 'Quarter-Mile' which ironically is .41 miles. I worked on that with Katie, Emma, Chris, and Liz for a bit. I then 'helped' Chris with his project which he showed me he has to completely construct himself. So he kind of used me as a sound board to bounce ideas off of and stuff. So we total decimated the whiteboard in the morning room...in a good way we just drew all over it with red marker but all of it was related to what we were doing. So it will be amusing if our collaborations are still up there tomorrow morning. After that I met with Paul again and we started to form a program that would save my graphs that I made from Robinson's data. We ran into a few roadblocks...The first being that some files were not formated into the 6 columns but some of them it turns out that they were just binary...So Paul said it was very difficult to extract data from binaries without knowing anything about them. So tomorrow it looks like after my first two meetings with Bob and Jake, respectfully, I'm going to talk to Dr. Robinson and ask him a few questions as well as show him my work so far...I owe a lot to Paul's help or I would be a likened to a floundering fish out of water. So another thing I have noticed myself doing is...well first in order to recall the last command on IDL one just pushes the up arrow until the desired line...this doesn't work however on practically any other program so do not try to do this or you will feel humiliated!

*Feels Very Accomplished*

Today I came at 12:20sih due to the fact that I had driver's ed to make up. I came in the at 1 headed to the lectures they have on Wednesday's which were about lasers and basically a giant game of "Eye Spy". Both of the lectures were very confusing but the latter was at least remotely understandable. I got back and started to take my data and manipulate it and put it in a different folder to make an analysis. I then added to the program to plot the graphs first one a standard plot then on a log-log graph as was recommended by Robinson. That took a little while to find all the IDL codes to allow me to do all that good stuff. So tomorrow I think I am going to work on figuring out and write some script to save the graphs so I can show Professor Robinson on Friday when he gets back. Today was a relaxing day not very taxing but I still got work done even though there is not much to show except about literally a million different numbers that don't mean anything unless you have the key (Which I have in my head!). So I'm staying until 6 today to make up a little of the time I missed. I will be doing the same tomorrow for the same reasons.

Help From Above!!

So today I met with Professor Robinson to get my new mission. I now have to do optical spectroscopy of galaxies to understand more about the central engine. I first have to change all this data into something I can work with and plot to make it nice. After my meeting with Robinson we went to Java's and I asked Chris to help me with the program to open the files in IDL. I had about 25 files to open each ranging about [6,1000] which is a terrible amount of data to do anything with so I had to use IDL. We had a meeting with Stephie and Jake today also which was very long and I ended up becoming very tired. So the program that was suppose to help me ended up not even working on my computer even though it was the same as Chris' and Jeff's. I was instructed to go visit Jake, who was in a 'meeting' with Greg, so instead I walked by Katie Montenegro's 'office' and was then instructed to go to Paul who lives on the second floor. So we went up to Paul who greatly helped with my conundrum and we ended up writing an entirely new program that would do all the calculations and then put it into a new file. So Paul was a great help and highly recommended if you have any program needs with IDL.

B rightness?

Today I started by review my data that I had already collected and double checking it. I also tried to see what the graphs meant and make sense of them. I looked on wikipedia for some more information, more specifically what the units meant or relationships between mostly anything in AGN. I went to lunch with Teddy, Chris, and Ryan in which we laughed at a very strange commercial for a 'revolutionary hair trimmer'! Jake came down after lunch and instructed me to go and sort of messed my two main Excel books together to make a very large and haphazard book. I then compared the luminosity with the broad line velocity which is suppose to make a beautiful graph instead of just some points. So Jake believes there is something up with the luminosity that I calculated...I believe looking back at the equation that it might be the equation that was wrong because it was for converting brightness to luminosity and not flux...but then again luminosity might be the same as flux...so I will bring it up with Jake at the meeting today.

The Harvester

Today Jake was back so I was able to show him my *ahem* 'pretty graphs' and stuff. So then he told me to look for the conversion of flux to luminosity which happens to be (4*pi*d^2) where d is the distance to the galaxy in...cm!! Yes cm not like km or even meters cm!! So I first had to find the distance in Mpc which are like 3.26 light years and then I found this handy little converted that converts basically any distance measurement to any other distance measurement. So after that we went to Java's (without Jake) and had an interesting conversation about babies and Port-a-potties. We got bad and I decided to do a hard-core search for some missing data I had in my spread sheets. I was looking for the distance of several galaxies and the one that persisted on eluding me was NGC 5141. Not only did it have the nerve to stand up me up in that department but also when I was looking for the mass of the black hole. So I spent most of the day chase data all over the web...I don't have much proof but I did accomplish a lot...I think. So I'm all done harvesting data for now...but tomorrow will tell!

NED hates me!!!

Today was the last day Jake would be gone so I have a lot to show him tomorrow as far as graphs go. Today I started by trying to get on NED after Jake IMed me saying what I should do...the operative word being 'trying'. I could get to the home page of NED but as far as trying to look up galaxies and all that good stuff, it would take NED 5 minutes to give me a blank screen or a background. So at first I thought that I needed to put more information into the search...I didn't have much more information than the name of the galaxy. I then tried to get directly to the galaxy I wanted from another site by hyperlink...another 5 minutes lost and yet no page. Then I began thinking maybe it was down or just an error with the page so I decided to open other tab with the search...another 5 minutes down the tubes. So then I asked Chris to try to get it from his computer but he had to leave so I was out of luck. We skipped going to Java's because no one came down to say 'Hey we are going to Java's' and we didn't want to be rude and just get up and go. We went outside for lunch and by that time we had lost two companeros Chris and Emma...Ashly and I split to go see the little presentation on E Coli while Liz stayed back to finish working her stuff because she is missing tomorrow and Friday. The talk was alright but short and we were late for pizza but lucky ate lunch before going. So, I came back to the 'lab' downstairs and found that NED was working for some reason and then began plugging data into a spread sheet from various different telescopes at different frequencies and such. Jake messaged me and I explained how NED had been down and he assisted me as to which data I should be using. Today seemed like a long day but I feel what I did accomplish was helpful in some way.

Shirts? We Don't Need No Stinking Shirts!!

Today I started by finishing up the graphs of Black Holes vs Various Components of Stuffness. This was the succeeded by me talking a break and thinking about what else I could do...I decided to start a new book for Excel and seperate stuff; Error, Black Hole containing graphs, and the Narrow vs Broad graphs. After finishing that we went to Java's where we actually had a conversation about astronomy!! The discussion was about the curvature of the universe which, was said, to be flat and not fun because it isn't an exotic shape. I had lunch with Chris, Liz, Ashly, and Emma today out by the Bus Stop where Teddy and Ryan stopped by to say 'hi'. We then went upstairs to talk with Chris and Stephie and discuss what we had accomplished the past week. Afterwards much head banging into walls proceeded due to the fact that neither Chris nor myself could get anything to work. I had decided to take the points that we very obvious outliers on the graphs and exclude them but if I did that with one that would perturb the rest of the graphs so in the end I made an entirely new book and set the graphs to make sure that they wouldn't affect each other when I excluded a point...after that very arduous task I found out that the correlation only change significantly in one graph of the six I made. The only few that are really correlated...well I forgot there names but there were only 3 so it didn't make a difference about the other twenty...yes that is right twenty and I did count them...some one could make work but it would be a long shot. Also the shirts for the Insight Lab came in today!...they were made with the wrong colors so Kevin, in an enraged state, went to go talk to the shirt people after a week of delays in getting the shirts. So the day is wrapping up and I am very glad because I am afraid I am going to fall asleep. I need sunlight.

Exceleber

Today Jake wasn't here because he was in Chicago. We still held the traditions of going to Java's at the regular time. Two new 'interns' came, one is working on the SCUBE with Ashly and Nick and the other is working on some more astronomical aspect. I went out with Chris, Ryan, and Teddy to Cross Roads for lunch today and we sat outside...that was the only outdoors time I had today. I finished making my table of data for Broad and Narrow Lines. I then started to graph them and look for relationships between the various columns. I then spent a good 15 minutes searching for a some obscure table with the mass of black holes. I searched practically the whole server to find out that it was in Jake's thesis...there was a bit of a communication error so it was okay. I filed that data into a spread sheet as well and proceeded to make graphs to see if anything related to that...nothing did...yet. So the war of Excel rages on!! I read the Hubble paper for our meeting tomorrow and had another run in with the vending machine and again did not get any candy but was able to make a satisfactory purchase of Cheedos which ended up being duly rewarding in that I got a very full bag of said Cheedos. Chris and myself worked upstairs today which was very comfortable but we did take a walk to stretch the old legs. We are both looking forward to leaving and getting some fresh air!!

I Want The Darn Skittles

Today I started by comparing graphs for spectroscopy of the emission lines with and without the broad lines to see if it made the graph a better fit. During our break not much interesting happened besides the fact that Meghan established the fact that she was way too tired to work. I then got the assignment of getting data of various measurements such as; narrow line velocity, broad line velocity, both dispersion velocities, flux of each, and the error associated with every measurement, of 17 galaxies. I then put all that info into a spread-sheet (just like Kevin) and finished I believe 11 galaxies. Lunch was fun with watching ESPN which had a montage of coaches getting upset and often resulted in physical, harmful, contact, which was quite amuzing to all seated at the table. Chris and myself went to the vending machines to get some candy with the left over change we had from lunch. We first left the change in the lab, then we found out that the Skittles don't vend, so we tried 4 other various candies on the same shelf...they didn't vend either. So, after much arduous inserting coins into the machine we decided to get a different snack just to see if it worked. We decided on Lay's so we typed in the code...sure enough the chips were dispensed...we both proceeded to say in unison that we didn't want the chips. We returned to the lab highly discontent with our purchase but we ate them anyways. We ended the day and week with a very short meeting with Jake then went our seperate ways, slightly happy that we wouldn't see each other for two days because that meant that we didn't have to get up as early and work!

Cry Me A River

Today I read some of Jake's PhD. dissertation about gases and learned what Broad Lines and Narrow Lines mean. During our break Jake got a special cup of coffee that read:
Sweet as love.
Black as death.
Strong as hell.
Which he had some trouble pouring due to the fact we were all laughing at him which, in turn, made him laugh, thus spilling said coffee. Another amusing distraction was Adrian playing with a rubber band and he had the obsessions of stretching it over various things so it would cut the object directly in half...like a table, rather large pillow, and a water bottle. During IDL class we were very ADD and could not concentrate for vary long...Shawn and I changed the color of a rubber ducky and then proceeded to get lost and completely lose what we were suppose to be doing. We got back on track when we switched to a 3D rendering of a graph. At the break during IDL we made three female interns cry...the reason...they were laughing so hard...we were talking about shrubs which someone mispronounced and started the whole chain of events. In IDL we learned how to change the colors of images and how to make plots which will probably be the most helpful thing we have learned yet. So right now my brain is fried but I am going to read the rest of my 'homework'.

Sean Meets Shawn

Today we went to the library to find an IDL book...good side: there were two...bad side: they both were checked out :P We helped Liz with getting the computer to 1) accept her account 2) get all the needed equipment a.k.a. mouse, keyboard... 3) and WiFi connection which just as of now I've been told doesn't work. Chris and I now have our own desk and bulletin board to work with (yeah!). I sat next to Shawn in our IDL class, which was sooooooo much better today and I actually got what was going on. We did get distracted at the end of the time but we learned a lot. I have to wait for tomorrow to access PuTTY to get on to IDL so I can't do too much but we are getting there. So now we are looking up Hubble Images for backgrounds on the laptops and waiting for our meeting with Jake. We also got our shirts today which are 'sick-nasty'!!

Hide and "GO SEEK"

Today we started by reading about black holes and active galactic nucleui. I learned that there are 3 kinds of black holes:
Static
Charged
Rotating
We had our first IDL class today which was very mind-boggling but I figured that it will improve as we go on...The major problem will be translating that to what I need specifically for work. Myself and Chris ran all over the place with Kevin to find 2 mice and 2 keyboards. We had, also, to install and move a lot of computers from floor 3 to the 1st floor...not so much fun. All in all it was a pretty good day but I'm very tired.

We on FIRE!!

Today we went and had a scavenger hunt around the RIT campus. (Woot A Team) We found various objects and recorded/made a movie, with a video camera...we won the little contest. Right now I am typing from the library because during a presentation by Joe Pow the fire alarm went off...it wasn't a drill so we went to the library to start typing blogs and setting up accounts for us. I got really tired after our scavenger hunt but had a lot of fun!! I am going to be doing a project on cooling flows and sound like a lot of fun!!

A TEAM!!!