Making my software open April 6, 2010
Posted by sarah in: astronomy, me . 5comments
After thinking about software development in astronomy and talking about it with friends at work and on this blog, I thought it was about time I put my money where my mouth is. I too write software – in fact, the bulk of my work here in Leiden has been based around code I’ve written over the past 2 years for the METIS project (in IDL). The code basically calculates the sensitivity of METIS on the E-ELT, or the minimum flux it will be able to detect at a particular signal to noise (S/N) in a given exposure time over its wavelength range, in various modes of observation. You can find the full package with background info on my brand-new github page, and a paper is in preparation (to be presented at SPIE 2010) for your referencing pleasure.
First steps in direct exoplanet spectroscopy January 16, 2010
Posted by sarah in: new astronomy . 2comments
Top: Image of star HR8799 and its exoplanet HR8799c (ESO/M.Janson). Bottom: The spectrum as recorded by the NACO detector, prior to extraction ; the vertical direction is spatial, horizontal is spectral (M. Janson et al, 2010)
Astronomers collaborating from both sides of the Atlantic have obtained the first direct spectrum of an exoplanet. The news here is mainly that they managed to record the spectrum and separate it reliably from that of the host star. Their short letter in ApJ, posted to astro-ph yesterday, doesn’t delve deeply into the implications of what they found but focuses more on the way they obtained, processed and analysed their data to separate the planet’s signature from that of the star.
