not much to do

today I had to wait until Chris got me the data for the oxygen raw, fit , and continuum lines. So then I subtracted continuum and fit from raw data and sent that back to Chris. Then I waited for the rest of the data to finish it all up, but he decided he was going to do it over the weekend. Also, the date for the abstract was moved to monday so Dr. Robinson, Chris, and I will look over it then.

yesterday

I forgot to do the blog for yesterday, so here it is. I had more data to put through IDL and subtract the continuum and fit data from the raw data to get oxygen lines. I also copied more data onto excel for Hydrogen (Halpha), sulfur, and oxygen lines that gave better fits for the raw data. Some line fits had many different coefficients and values so it took quite a long time for me to put all the data onto excel. But I managed to finish at 3:30, so I decided to help the other research group with their collect.

efficient day

today I finished copying the data from the plain text files onto excel and then finished taking more objects' oxygen data, subtracting iron and sulfur data from the raw to get what is supposed to be the iron data. I could have done more, but Chris M.'s program was having some trouble loading the data into columns. I also asked Chris what the overall goal of the project was, and now I understand exactly what it is I am doing, and how all the data and numbers relate to active galactic nuclei (AGN) and the supermassive black hole in the center. Now, I feel more informed and understanding of what I am doing.

today

i got lots more work today because chris made better fits for the gaussions and so I have to copy them onto excel, it is much longer and I will have to finish them tomorrow.

Help with IDL

today Chris F. helped me with the IDL program to set up my data. He wrote in a program that will not only be able to paste data from IDL onto a plain text file, but also write the data into 2 columns like it should be. This was extremely helpful, and I was able to finish all my work in just a few minutes, instead of hours. After I finished my work, I was not given anything else to do because the undergraduate student I am working with was not in. Now I know how to use IDL so if there is more data, I will be able to quickly finish it without problems.

IDL problems

today I had to transfer more data from a plain text file into IDL, manipulate the data, and put it back out into a plain text file into two columns. The problem was trying to take the data from IDL to a plain text file. Everytime I tried to put it back into plain text, it turned up blank. The undergraduate student I work with proposed that I put the data into excel and then recopy it into a plain text file as 2 columns. I hope this will work on monday.

IDL again

today I had to take an array(matrix) of data from Chris and put it through IDL program and subtract certain parts. It actually turned out much more confusing than I thought it would be and I asked someone else for help. After he showed me how to do it, i had to rearrange all the data because it did not show up as two columns. At the end of the day I was given more data, but when I tried to put it through IDL, it stopped so that was frustrating. Tomorrow I will try and figure out what to do with IDL and how to fix it.