DSB> Sounds like he should talk to his supervisor rather tnan Quick!
Yes, and I told him we don't support undergraduates. Still the
possibilities for enhancing TOPCAT had some attraction, so I made an
exception. Also if he continues in astronomy, we have another friend in
the community.
Note there is some precedent for acting as a supervisor. We produced
Starlink Guides because supervisors wouldn't/couldn't explain
fundamental observation preparation, data reduction and analysis.
In my message last night I mentioned some buzzwords, gave a few links
including TOPCAT, Mirage, and CIAO; mentioned STIL and Tablecopy (but
not Tom McGlynn's classes); and cited some pertinent books. This is
what I think he wanted. He does say that he's not expecting any code
from us, just a few directions---Guide-like information. He knows he
still has to research the topic and write the code himself. In his
reply he writes: "I will investigate the links further and will be more
than happy to submit any classes and any other information I feel which
would be beneficial in this area."
MBT> If you want me to I will take this over and get back to him with
MBT> some useful information, but declining to do his project for him.
He seemed happy enough. If he has TOPCAT/STIL questions I'll direct him
to you Mark.
MBT> Of course, if anyone out there is an expert on Voronoi tessellations
MBT> by all means pre-empt me...
They are used in the X-ray community to cluster photons into sources
without prior assumptions, and for studying the large-scale structure
and clustering. Therefore we should have some knowledge of these
techniques. Looking for outliers both for rejection and special study
(pathological astronomy) may benefit TOPCAT analysis.
Malcolm
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