Week 1
Getting Started
I have been lucky enough in the past to spend some time in Yellowstone National Park, but I have never been to Bozeman. This is my first summer not spent in the oppressive heat of Columbia, so I am very appreciative of the beautiful weather and am spending as much time outside as possible. I often take walks to the nearby Peet's hill and adjacent walking trails, sometimes even later in the evening since the sunset isn't till past 9! This weekend, a few of us hiked Triple Tree on Friday, which provided a great view of the 'M' trail that we hiked Saturday with the REU. We went up a very steep route and I could definitely feel the effects of the altitude. During the second week, Dr. Shaw gave a very interesting talk about the colors found in the Yellowstone pools. This was of particular interest to many of us because we visited Yellowstone the following Saturday! It was a jam packed trip with many gorgeous views.
On the first official day of the REU, I met with Dr. Anne Lohfink to discuss our project. I have taken a good bit of time to annotate and gain a strong understanding of the proposal, however there is still a lot to be learned throughout the process. Due to my lack of Python practice, I also began an online course through Codecademy, which should be completed in the next few weeks. This will be very helpful in automating many of the processes and producing meaningful graphs to display results. Dr. Lohfink and I try to meet fairly consistently and discuss what we have done, where we are going next, and what we will do to get there.




Week 2
Understanding Background and Practicing
This week I have spent a good bit of time studying unfamilar topics that are important to the project, and have also continued working through my Python course. I downloaded and reduced data for my first target, MAXI J1836-194. This source went into outburst in September 2011, and although it was a so-called failed outburst (never progressed through all stages), it still provides valuable information. The data was taken from RXTE and I will be using XSPEC in the coming weeks to fit the data to a model that will return a corona height. I have also been studying the project proposal to gain a stronger understanding of the general process!




This friday, we each gave a two week update presentation.