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MAC VERSION

Required Software

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Mac User's guide (Acrobat pdf format)

Mac Student manual (Acrobat pdf format)

Questionnaires and Pre/Post-Tests
(Acrobat pdf format)
A Description of the Lab:
Purpose: To understand the observation problems involved in identifying eclipsing binary stars. To understand how to determine the period of a variable star from irregularly sampled measurements of its brightness.

These two labs developed by Claud Lacy of the University of Arkansas simulate eclipsing binary stars. FindEB uses a set of 150 CCD frames, obtained by a simulated automatic telescope, of a star field containing an eclipsing binary stars. The images include the effects of astronomical "seeing" variations and atmospheric transparency variations from night to night. The object is to identify which star in the field is the eclipsing binary star. In FindPeriod, the object is to determine the orbital period of an eclipsing binary star to 6-digit accuracy from the same 150 magnitude observations used in FindEB. Both programs make use of the same data sets of measurements of magnitudes; 81 of these data sets are provided with the lab material, with provision for generating additional data sets to the user's specifications.

[AVAILABLE FOR COLOR MAC ONLY]

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