Some Ideas For Astronomy-Related Projects ========================================= These were culled from a list emailed to me by Geoff Mathews <[mathewsgeoff@fhda.edu](mailto:mathewsgeoff@fhda.edu)> * exoplanet exaggerator - read data on known exoplanets and present an exaggerated "by eye" view; this would show the patch of sky with the star and make it visibly flicker (real transits cause changes in brightness at the 0.01% level...), and for systems with a measured doppler shift, exaggerated blue and redshift of the star. There are a few modified versions of this I can think of, too - for example, line up several stars side by side for comparison * exoplanet simulator - the user has sliders to adjust observed inclination, stellar mass, planet mass, size, and orbital distance, and the simulator generates a lightcurve, velocity curve, , and (if the exaggerator exists) exaggerated view of the star. Similar to the following two tools, but having the option of seeing the full light-curve over time (not just the simulation of a single transit) and with the radial velocity simulator, having the option of showing an exaggerated wobble of the star * exoplanet magic zoom view - see a magically zoomed in view of an exoplanet system, both the view from Earth and a "top-down" view with exaggerated stellar wobble. This would be great to pair with a representation of the lightcurve and velocity curve. * spiral galaxy dark matter simulator - make a simple galaxy with stars arranged in a disk with circular orbits, and have an interface for adjusting the dark matter distribution and see the resulting velocity curve * intermediate complexity atmosphere simulator - pro-tools are too complex for basic teaching, but existing simple models don't include tie-ins to spectroscopy. It would be great to have a simplified atmosphere model that would allow users to adjust CO2 and H2O levels, see the resulting atmospheric absorption spectrum and temperature The exoplanet tools were all inspired by: [http://astro.unl.edu/naap/esp/animations/transitSimulator.html](http://astro.unl.edu/naap/esp/animations/transitSimulator.html) [http://astro.unl.edu/naap/esp/animations/radialVelocitySimulator.html](http://astro.unl.edu/naap/esp/animations/radialVelocitySimulator.html) but these lack a few useful aspects and combinations If you have any questions about the above, please contact Geoff <[mathewsgeoff@fhda.edu](mailto:mathewsgeoff@fhda.edu)> or myself (Grond) <[president@cs.foothillstemclubs.org](mailto:president@cs.foothillstemclubs.org)>. If you want to take on one of these projects, please let Geoff know, and make a commit to this file noting that you're working on the project (talk to me and I'll give you push access to the repo).