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I know in the wiki it says you can use either laptop or a binder but what do people usually use? What's more popular, especially among the more experienced teams? Is using a laptop one of those things which are very tempting at first but you learn is a rookie mistake, or do people actually use it?

Awesome314159 wrote: ↑December 6th, 2022, 10:03 pm I know in the wiki it says you can use either laptop or a binder but what do people usually use? What's more popular, especially among the more experienced teams? Is using a laptop one of those things which are very tempting at first but you learn is a rookie mistake, or do people actually use it?

Basically it's whatever works best for you. We used a binder and a laptop, the binder worked well for a very quick reference, and had the added benefit that we had to compile and organize it, which cemented the info into our head better, and we used the computer to hold a lot of other info to quickly look up on the fly as a last resort.

Lots of other people I've heard of use two laptops, and just organize the info well. There really isn't a 'best option,' per sae. Ideally, you'll understand the material well enough eventually that your resource is used minimally.

Hope that helps!

As I'm not competing anymore , I'm a little curious. What do people think are some of the most difficult quirks of this event this year?

RiverWalker88 wrote: ↑December 14th, 2022, 8:33 pm As I'm not competing anymore , I'm a little curious. What do people think are some of the most difficult quirks of this event this year?

Well... the removal of hydrostatic equilibrium makes things certainly a bit more reasonable.
Researching the general object types this year is a bit harder than previous years in my opinion since a lot of them (semiregular variables, luminous blue variables, kilonovae) just do not have that much info at all. But other than that the topics covered are similar to last year's; just with less focus on protostars/YSOs.
That's all I can say really; I'm behind on DSOs... hopefully, someone else can talk about those

Awesome314159 wrote: ↑December 6th, 2022, 10:03 pm I know in the wiki it says you can use either laptop or a binder but what do people usually use? What's more popular, especially among the more experienced teams? Is using a laptop one of those things which are very tempting at first but you learn is a rookie mistake, or do people actually use it?

I will say, when I competed, I knew people who literally downloaded large sections of wikipedia to their laptops. I think that had mild success if test writers literally copy from wiki, but I must say I don't. So as RiverWalker says, mileage can vary. I personally used a binder, but I knew people who used laptops to great success! I think the only trap is people who think they can get away with "googling everything".

Alright, thanks everyone for the replies! My partner and I are going to use at least one laptop, but we're planning to have a couple of typed pdfs with our main information, and then downloaded webpages or something as a larger compilation of more detailed information. We are gonna organize our DSOs in a slideshow. I'm new to the event, so I have no idea how it'll go, but we'll see.

AstroClarinet wrote: ↑December 15th, 2022, 2:46 pm Researching the general object types this year is a bit harder than previous years in my opinion since a lot of them (semiregular variables, luminous blue variables, kilonovae) just do not have that much info at all.

^Totally agree, some of the DSOs seem pretty random tho they're kind of interesting too.

Does anyone know a good place to get started? This is my first time participating in astronomy and I was wondering where you can find the information that you need to learn in order to prepare for this event.

Does anyone know the limits of using a laptop? (Like can you access anything or only specific websites or documents?)

Ram458, please read the rules. They clearly state restrictions of using a laptop. For study events, always start studying by looking at the rules sheet, and researching topics from there.