Zooniverse is a site dedicated to "Citizen Science" - scientifically valuable projects that average people can do to help professional astronomers (and other science field people) to train algorithms (in some cases) to classify and identify otherwise hard to classify data. That's the way "machine learning" algorithms happen. You need real people to make real decisions and let computers see those decisions so it knows then how to do it by itself! We're going to do a project classifying periodic variable stars from their very large data set of photometry of millions of stars from the WASP project (Wide Angle Stellar Photometry).
Here's the steps you follow:
-- First read about the scientific project and about the variable stars that we're classifying; Eclipsing binaries that are contact binaries, Algol binaries, and then also rotators, pulsators. https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/ajnorton/superwasp-variable-stars/about/faq
-- Go to https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/ajnorton/superwasp-variable-stars/classify
-- Register yourself on Zooniverse (see upper right corner of the above web page. Be sure on your assignement to tell me your login and password. Pick an easy password and it doesn't have to be "secure" and complicated! No one is going to steal your identify for this kind of thing! You'll want to give me your password so I can verify your identifications
-- click on the tab "Tutorial". Click through the pop up boxes with the little arrow at the bottom of the box. Read that to see what kind of light curves go with what kind of variable stars.
-- To be sure you understand and have in your mind what kind of light curve goes with what kind of variable, now read the "Field Guide", which should be on the extreme right side of the webpage as a sideways tab. Go through and look at each example. Note that the period of the variable star may not be correct and this will mess up the light curve. If it's 1/2 or 2x the right period, you can still figure it out. But it may be just wrong. Be sure to look carefully at all the half dozen examples for each time of variable star and how it's light curve my look, even with a 1/2 or 2x the right period. Only when you're sure you understand what to look for should you start to classify stars.
Here's some important hints to help you decide which kind of star you may be looking at. Be sure to note the range in brightness on the vertical axis. Is it varying by just a little and that's why the points are really scattered? Is it varying by a lot (like 40% or more), then if the right period of variation is there, the points should fit a tigher light curve if it's real. Look at the period of the varying, shown above the light curve in minutes, in hours, and in days to help you know what it is in familiar time units.
* "Rotators" are stars that have varying light intensity on their surface. Stars typically take days or even weeks to spin once, not hours.
* EW stars typically have periods of just a day or even less
* EA stars typically have periods of several days to even a couple of weeks
* EB stars usually have shorter periods, of a few days and not weeks
* Pulsators can have any period from hours to weeks, but always have a sharper rise and slower descent in brightness.
Your Task: Classify 17 different stars which are determined by you to be actual variable stars. In other words, you need to keep going until you have 17 true variables, and just keep track of those that are "unknown" or "junk". Keep track of the "unknown" and "junk" light cuves as well - that's important. You'll just record the total number of those that you identify, giving the numbers for these two category totals on the worksheet... List each genuine variable star on the Word worksheet linked here which you can download. After you've filled out this Word document, you submit it in Canvas.