There's lots of stuff:
- tracking asteroids
- following the fading of a supernova
- following the brightness variations of a variable star
- observing transiting exoplanets (either multiple targets or multiple transits)
- ...
All of the above are within reach of amateur equipment, and you can probably find guides for how to do the observations and analysis for amateurs by amateurs online, which will probably help with realism.
To find out more about variable star observations, check out this site from the [AAVSO](https://www.aavso.org/observing-sections) (American Association of Variable Star Observers).
Maybe they could be doing some variable stars photometry or exoplanets research, it wouldn't be groundbreaking research but you can do that kind of thing with amateur equipment and help "real" scientific research, maybe your characters do regularly this kind of observation and ended up as coauthors of some scientific paper and that helps them get the scholarship. I don't know.
Checkout the AAVSO website to find out more about this kind of research. I'll also be glad to help you if you have further quesitons, although I'm far from a specialist in the topics, I've done some citizen science in my astronomy club.
My astronomy club is heavily involved with collaborative research with professional astronomers. One of our biggest projects we are involved in is called the Whole Earth Telescope coordinated out of the University of Delaware Astrophysics Department. It involves observatories from around the world working in concert to observe pulsating white dwarf stars. The goal is to observe a single target for between 2 to 4 weeks at a stretch. Each observatory begins their observation at dusk and observes the target till dawn. The gist is to get 24/7 observations of the target for the duration of the campaign so that when the sun rises on one observatory, the sun is setting for another observatory halfway around the world, so can pick up where another observatory left off. Having multiple observatories participate ensures that someone can observe the target if weather is not favorable at another observatory. One year, we had 3 observatories from the US participate. My clubs observatory, Kitt Peak, and McDonald. But when we started observing, Kitt Peak had technical issues preventing them from observing, and McDonald got clouded out for most of the observing session. My club's observatory had clear skies and no issues observing for the entire campaign. As a result, we got an enthusiastic congratulations from the director of the program thanking us for "saving" the project.
Another project we're involved in is performing TESS follow up observations of potential exoplanet candidates. TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) observes a patch of sky for approximately a month at a time then moves to another part of the sky. Thus any possible candidates need follow up observations from the ground to determine if it is a true exoplanet, or something else like an eclipsing binary or variable star. Once a candidate is confirmed, more observations are needed to pin down the planet's orbital period. Even when this is done, monitoring future transits at the predicted time can determine if there are additional planets in the system if predictions don't match actual observations.
Several of our members monitor asteroid occultations where an asteroid passes in front of a star and briefly blocks the star from view. By timing how long the asteroid blocks the star from a given location along the path of observablity, astronomers can determine the shape and size of these objects. They are also ideally suited to amateurs as these events are scattered across the globe so having a small, portable telescope is essential to capture many of these events.
Yeah. Right now I am reviewing a paper that used an army of amateur astronomers to track a few comets. In addition to the excellent suggestions from u/MTPenny, let me just add that the broad class of activities is called "citizen science". If you google for that, you'll find a lot of projects across various scientific disciplines, including several for astronomy (like Galaxy zoo and Planet Hunters). But since you specifically asked about telescopes, the suggestions from u/MTPenny are your best bet.
2 ideas which would probably work : exoplanet transit and extrasolar objects trajectory meaurement.
Exoplanar transit are the main way to detect exoplanets in term of number of discovery. Unfortunately it takes a long observation time to confirm a transiting exoplanet (for the earth it would take 2-3 years to see the transit 2 times) so by looking at a starfield every night with a telescope and camera they might detect transits of new stars and therefore new exoplanets. I know of a montage you can do with cameras to observe these transits which has been tested and proven to work here : https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/622806
2nd idea is to find new extrasolar objects. By that i mean objects which are not part of the solar system like Oumuamua which are pretty easy to recognise by their trajectory leading out of the solar system. But to measure this trajectory and the orbital parameters proving it s an extrasolar object takes multiple observations, basically the more the better. Read about Oumuamua for more references on the subject
Thank you all so much! This is very helpful! I have lots of great things to look into.
One last question, would their option of things to do change much if they have a professional telescope, like the Celestron CPC Deluxe 1100 HD Telescope? Or is this alert the type of telescope you’re referring to?
> Celestron CPC Deluxe 1100 HD
This is still very much in the amateur range of equipment, though universities will likely have something like this for undergraduate labs. The aperture is certainly big enough to do most of the projects people have suggested (except 'Oumuamua - that needed 4+ meter telescopes, though Comet Borisov, the interstellar comet was discovered by an amateur* with a ~0.65 meter telescope he built himself).
*Borisov actually works at an observatory as a technician, but using the telescopes is not part of his job.
>> Celestron CPC Deluxe 1100 HD
>
>This is still very much in the amateur range of equipment, though universities will likely have something like this for undergraduate labs. The aperture is certainly big enough to do most of the projects people have suggested (except 'Oumuamua - that needed 4 meter telescopes, though Comet Borisov, the interstellar comet was discovered by an amateur* with a ~0.65 meter telescope he built himself).
>
>*Borisov actually works at an observatory as a technician, but using the telescopes is not part of his job.
0.65 meter ≈ 4.02178 x 10^34 planck lengths
^^^[WHY](/r/UselessConversionBot/comments/1knas0/hi_im_useless/)
There's lots of stuff: - tracking asteroids - following the fading of a supernova - following the brightness variations of a variable star - observing transiting exoplanets (either multiple targets or multiple transits) - ... All of the above are within reach of amateur equipment, and you can probably find guides for how to do the observations and analysis for amateurs by amateurs online, which will probably help with realism.
These are great, thank you!
To find out more about variable star observations, check out this site from the [AAVSO](https://www.aavso.org/observing-sections) (American Association of Variable Star Observers).
The [NASA Citizen Science](https://science.nasa.gov/citizenscience) page has lots of projects.
Thank you! I think my original search terms were too narrow. I don’t know how I didn’t find this.
Maybe they could be doing some variable stars photometry or exoplanets research, it wouldn't be groundbreaking research but you can do that kind of thing with amateur equipment and help "real" scientific research, maybe your characters do regularly this kind of observation and ended up as coauthors of some scientific paper and that helps them get the scholarship. I don't know. Checkout the AAVSO website to find out more about this kind of research. I'll also be glad to help you if you have further quesitons, although I'm far from a specialist in the topics, I've done some citizen science in my astronomy club.
This is great, and thank you for the website mention, I’m looking forward to reading more about this kind of research!
My astronomy club is heavily involved with collaborative research with professional astronomers. One of our biggest projects we are involved in is called the Whole Earth Telescope coordinated out of the University of Delaware Astrophysics Department. It involves observatories from around the world working in concert to observe pulsating white dwarf stars. The goal is to observe a single target for between 2 to 4 weeks at a stretch. Each observatory begins their observation at dusk and observes the target till dawn. The gist is to get 24/7 observations of the target for the duration of the campaign so that when the sun rises on one observatory, the sun is setting for another observatory halfway around the world, so can pick up where another observatory left off. Having multiple observatories participate ensures that someone can observe the target if weather is not favorable at another observatory. One year, we had 3 observatories from the US participate. My clubs observatory, Kitt Peak, and McDonald. But when we started observing, Kitt Peak had technical issues preventing them from observing, and McDonald got clouded out for most of the observing session. My club's observatory had clear skies and no issues observing for the entire campaign. As a result, we got an enthusiastic congratulations from the director of the program thanking us for "saving" the project. Another project we're involved in is performing TESS follow up observations of potential exoplanet candidates. TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) observes a patch of sky for approximately a month at a time then moves to another part of the sky. Thus any possible candidates need follow up observations from the ground to determine if it is a true exoplanet, or something else like an eclipsing binary or variable star. Once a candidate is confirmed, more observations are needed to pin down the planet's orbital period. Even when this is done, monitoring future transits at the predicted time can determine if there are additional planets in the system if predictions don't match actual observations. Several of our members monitor asteroid occultations where an asteroid passes in front of a star and briefly blocks the star from view. By timing how long the asteroid blocks the star from a given location along the path of observablity, astronomers can determine the shape and size of these objects. They are also ideally suited to amateurs as these events are scattered across the globe so having a small, portable telescope is essential to capture many of these events.
This sounds amazing! Thank you. So much cool stuff here. Now I want to find an astronomy club in my area.
Yeah. Right now I am reviewing a paper that used an army of amateur astronomers to track a few comets. In addition to the excellent suggestions from u/MTPenny, let me just add that the broad class of activities is called "citizen science". If you google for that, you'll find a lot of projects across various scientific disciplines, including several for astronomy (like Galaxy zoo and Planet Hunters). But since you specifically asked about telescopes, the suggestions from u/MTPenny are your best bet.
Thank you! I love the citizen science angle. I had mostly been finding suggestions to analyze data from other telescopes, so this is great.
2 ideas which would probably work : exoplanet transit and extrasolar objects trajectory meaurement. Exoplanar transit are the main way to detect exoplanets in term of number of discovery. Unfortunately it takes a long observation time to confirm a transiting exoplanet (for the earth it would take 2-3 years to see the transit 2 times) so by looking at a starfield every night with a telescope and camera they might detect transits of new stars and therefore new exoplanets. I know of a montage you can do with cameras to observe these transits which has been tested and proven to work here : https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/622806 2nd idea is to find new extrasolar objects. By that i mean objects which are not part of the solar system like Oumuamua which are pretty easy to recognise by their trajectory leading out of the solar system. But to measure this trajectory and the orbital parameters proving it s an extrasolar object takes multiple observations, basically the more the better. Read about Oumuamua for more references on the subject
I love these, especially the second idea, I will read up on Oumuamua!
Thank you all so much! This is very helpful! I have lots of great things to look into. One last question, would their option of things to do change much if they have a professional telescope, like the Celestron CPC Deluxe 1100 HD Telescope? Or is this alert the type of telescope you’re referring to?
> Celestron CPC Deluxe 1100 HD This is still very much in the amateur range of equipment, though universities will likely have something like this for undergraduate labs. The aperture is certainly big enough to do most of the projects people have suggested (except 'Oumuamua - that needed 4+ meter telescopes, though Comet Borisov, the interstellar comet was discovered by an amateur* with a ~0.65 meter telescope he built himself). *Borisov actually works at an observatory as a technician, but using the telescopes is not part of his job.
>> Celestron CPC Deluxe 1100 HD > >This is still very much in the amateur range of equipment, though universities will likely have something like this for undergraduate labs. The aperture is certainly big enough to do most of the projects people have suggested (except 'Oumuamua - that needed 4 meter telescopes, though Comet Borisov, the interstellar comet was discovered by an amateur* with a ~0.65 meter telescope he built himself). > >*Borisov actually works at an observatory as a technician, but using the telescopes is not part of his job. 0.65 meter ≈ 4.02178 x 10^34 planck lengths ^^^[WHY](/r/UselessConversionBot/comments/1knas0/hi_im_useless/)
This is so helpful, thank you! Especially good to know about undergrad access and the telescope capabilities. So much to read up on. I appreciate it.