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It turns out I'm going to be competing this event for the first time on Saturday...

I haven't even looked at the event before, but from what I understand my teammate has a decent binder. What resources can I use to get a basic idea of the event topics? What formulas should I research to be useful at the calculation aspects of the event?

Thanks for the help in advance, this was very abrupt news and I am scrambling to prepare.

Tesel wrote:It turns out I'm going to be competing this event for the first time on Saturday...

I haven't even looked at the event before, but from what I understand my teammate has a decent binder. What resources can I use to get a basic idea of the event topics? What formulas should I research to be useful at the calculation aspects of the event?

Thanks for the help in advance, this was very abrupt news and I am scrambling to prepare.

For the DSOs, Chandra's website is a very good starting site. For math, learn parallax, distance modulus, redshift, Wien's law, Kepler's laws (esp his third law), distance conversions, and Cepheid Period-Luminosity relationship. I'm assuming this is regionals, so the test (if anything like the one I took on Saturday, will focus mainly on DSOs and much less on math.) Try getting to the point where you can ID the DSOs on site, using some sort of image gallery.

I realize this isn't exactly the response that you were looking for, but if my partner got replaced, this is what I would have my new partner do.

PM2017 wrote:

Tesel wrote:It turns out I'm going to be competing this event for the first time on Saturday...

I haven't even looked at the event before, but from what I understand my teammate has a decent binder. What resources can I use to get a basic idea of the event topics? What formulas should I research to be useful at the calculation aspects of the event?

Thanks for the help in advance, this was very abrupt news and I am scrambling to prepare.

For the DSOs, Chandra's website is a very good starting site. For math, learn parallax, distance modulus, redshift, Wien's law, Kepler's laws (esp his third law), distance conversions, and Cepheid Period-Luminosity relationship. I'm assuming this is regionals, so the test (if anything like the one I took on Saturday, will focus mainly on DSOs and much less on math.) Try getting to the point where you can ID the DSOs on site, using some sort of image gallery.

I realize this isn't exactly the response that you were looking for, but if my partner got replaced, this is what I would have my new partner do.

To be honest, that was exactly the response I was looking for. Thankfully, it's just an invitational, but a solid chance I end up in this event further on. I understand how difficult the event is, but I've never come close to competing it. I'll take a look at all of the math things you just mentioned and put together a formula sheet. I started to work on DSO's based on a friend's recommendation, but I will wait to see the binder before I do too much.

I hope my partner understands the essentials of the event, but are there any intro sites/videos to check out for a basic understanding of part A?

In addition to checking the rules and posting here, I also typically recommend the webinar on https://www.soinc.org/astronomy-c. The 2018 MIT test there also likely would be good practice when you feel up for it (at least to see what types of questions can be asked, not so much for the format because lots of people use different formats).

I've uploaded the test I made for my high school's tryouts this year to the Test Exchange. Note that the radial velocity image is missing, and one of the questions was taken from a test Adi1008 wrote (with permission) and another from a previous nationals test. Also a lot of the math is probably a bit above the level typically expected, and isn't quite on the rules but just things I thought were interesting.

Magikarpmaster629 wrote:I've uploaded the test I made for my high school's tryouts this year to the Test Exchange. Note that the radial velocity image is missing, and one of the questions was taken from a test Adi1008 wrote (with permission) and another from a previous nationals test. Also a lot of the math is probably a bit above the level typically expected, and isn't quite on the rules but just things I thought were interesting.

Thank you so much for sharing this test! I perused some of the math questions and I really liked them. Definitely will take formally with my partner in the near future.

Oops...

CaldwellBrownies wrote:I can't seem to find the apparent and absolute magnitude for the DSO RCW 103. Does anyone have an accurate value that they have found?

If you know the apparent magnitude and distance (in parsecs), then use the formula , where m is apparent magnitude, M is absolute magnitude, and d is the distance in parsecs.

Does anyone know the apparent and/or absolute magnitude(s) of PSR B0355+54? Your help is very much appreciated!

Hi, I'm pretty new to astronomy, and my competition is coming up.

I've heard rumors that they do not allow laptops at certain (lower-quality) events. Is there any validity to this?