Projects

This year there will be several projects in different fields of astronomy / astrophysics / technology. Teams are going to be assembled according to students' fields of interest. The current list of our team leaders with their projects is available here:

• Suzana Galović: Astronomical spectroscopy
  
  
• Boris Štromar: Astrophotography
  
  
• Denis Vida: Croatian Meteor Network - data analysis
  Abstract: Croatian Meteor Network (CMN) is currently monitoring the night sky over Croatia and near surroundings with 30 paired cameras that enable precise trangulation of detected meteors and their orbit determination. There has been an ongoing effort of CMN to produce an automated, scientifically meaningufull, photometric analysis of detected meteors as well. Recently, it has been observed that light-curves of detected meteors display large amplitude and high frequency intensity variations as the meteor passes through it's brightest phase. These intense brightness variations could possibly be attributed to meteor's rotation.
  It's the goal of this group to try and obtain light-curves of meteors detected by CMN, analyse their frequency spectrum and try to determine their rotation rates.
  
  
• Vasilije Perovic, Marta Nikić: Geophysical observatory - ELF Observations of Ionosphere
  Abstract: The main instrument at Tican Geophysical Station is Schumann antenna which is used to observe Ionosphere at Extremely Low Frequencies and one of the main goals is detection of ELF EM waves during meteor showers. Theoretical models predict these signals but they have never been observed before. Observations were successfully started recently and the system was automated. In order to produce quantitative results, an absolute calibration of Schumann antenna is required. Trivial and simple methods fail at ELF since antenna length cannot be matched with the wavelength. The goal of this group is to design a system for calibration and perform the calibration on the Schumann antenna. Students will gain knowledge and experience in antenna design and RF electronics as well as data processing and analysis. Students will learn to use LabView and MATLAB to perform these. There is also ample scope to contribute to the development of the LabView code controlling the observations as well as further automation.
  
  
  
  * Minor changes of groups and leaders are still possible and will be fully defined until the end of June.