Week+of+October+22

I wasn't in class today as I was coming home from Buffalo. However, I did take a look at "Nature's Most Powerful Monsters" to read up a little bit on the basics of AGN. That was cut short when one of the first things I saw was what a student needed to have a basic understanding of before even reading that. So I started to research and read up on some of those areas. The one I read about today was [|Spectroscopy in Astronomy]. I also looked at the [|Wikipedia] page for it. One thing that I learned today is that according to the Big Bang Theory, quasars are receding (moving away) from the Earth. This causes a shift towards the red end of the light spectrum. It is believed that quasars are the most distant objects known.
 * October 22**

Today I caught up on some of the work that I missed on Monday by emailing TL my task list for the future. I also read more of the spectroscopy in astronomy page. There is a ton of information there that is pretty difficult to comprehend and it's going to take longer than I originally thought to get through reading "Nature's Most Powerful Monsters." Below is a copy of the task list I sent to TL:
 * October 23**
 * 1) Read up on subjects necessary to fully understand "Nature's Most Powerful Monsters"
 * 2) Spectroscopy in Astronomy
 * 3) Redshift and Hubble's Law
 * 4) Flux, distance, and luminosity relation (the "inverse-square" law)
 * 5) Galaxies, active galaxies, and quasars
 * 6) Read "Nature's Most Powerful Monsters"
 * 7) Collaborate with Kyle to learn about basic formulas, procedures, goals, etc., of the AGN project
 * 8) Create a list of possible outcomes for the project
 * 9) Gain a basic understanding of Sean's excel program from Kyle

I read up on spectroscopy, redshift, Hubble's Law, flux, the "inverse-square" law w/r/t radiation, and the concept of active galaxies. I mainly looked at Wikipedia pages for those so tomorrow I am going to find other sources to make sure that the information I was looking at is correct.
 * October 24**

I read up more on spectroscopy and redshift and found more sites that went a little more in depth into those subjects. I linked those sites onto the websites page. I also began reading "Nature's Most Powerful Monsters" but it was just talking about how to use the software so I'm wondering if I can't just ask Kyle to explain that to me.
 * October 25**

I skimmed through "Nature's Most Powerful Monsters" and created a rough outline of it so that I, and others who work on the project in the future, can use it to look things up in the article more quickly. I also began reading the stuff about the software after talking to TL about whether it was necessary (and it definitely was).I also got a little bit into the personal perspective written by Jeffrey F. Lockwood.
 * October 26**

Week of October 29