Gabi traveled to IUCAA in Pune, India for the second half of her internship.
Gabi Mehta (Pomona College)
Gabi joined the GROWTH internship program after completing her third year at Pomona. She majors in Physics with Astrophysics Concentration and she plans to work on a minor in computer science as well. She wants to develop her career in the field of astrophysics research and instrumentation for astronomy.
- Internship Start Date 16 June 2016
- Internship End Date 20 August 2016
- Project Astronomical image and data analysis
- Mentors Dr. Varun Bhalerao (IUCAA, India) and Prof. Bryan Penprase (Pomona College)
- Caltech, USA & IUCAA, India
The most interesting challenge in my first week was figuring out how to color combine images. I have never false colored images via photoshop before,
and figuring out and performing the scientific process in astrophotography was exciting!
-- Week 1
Since I am not in India yet, I spent the 4th of July in Santa Monica and ended up watching the fireworks at the Rose Bowl. The fireworks were truly amazing!
-- Week 2
This week I worked with my mentor and another intern to find a Cepheid variable in a field. Even though we had a finding chart,
it took us at least an hour WITH our mentor (and some hours alone) to find the object. We also managed to get a hold of a night in
Chile for observing, which I am very excited about!
-- Week 3
This week I flew to India!! It is still unbelievable to me that I can spend a total of 19/20 hours in the air, starting
on Tuesday and arriving only on Thursday. I’m looking forward to meeting all of the new people at IUCAA!
-- Week 4
