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Justin Travis Gilker
Missouri State University
Advisor: Dr. Michael Reed
Abstract
There are currently no surveys that are designed to search for variability at timescales less than one minute1. We have been laying the ground work to begin the first survey designed for this reason using the facilities at Baker Observatory. This could lead to discoveries of new classes of variable stars, and unpredictable discoveries, since this has not been done before. In preparation, we have been doing preliminary work to determine the sensitivity of our equipment to variability at various timescales and exploring methods to efficiently detect and classify variability for the large quantity of objects that a survey would observe. We have been writing new programs to facilitate this need while also exploring the use of multi-object photometric techniques. We have found that our strategy is very sensitive to short and medium period pulsators, while the long period pulsators are proving to be difficult. Thanks to the vast number of stars we have observed, we also believe that we have made a few new discoveries.
Justin Gilker: I am a senior at Missouri State University with majors in Physics and Computer Science and minors in Astronomy and Math. My hometown is Anderson, Missouri. After graduation, I plan on pursuing a career in computer science. |
