Colloquium this week gives our seniors a chance to tell us about their senior projects. We have two mid-project reports and one final report. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Determining the Ages of Star Clusters<\/strong>” by Lauren Marker “Identifying Binary Systems Using Differential Photometry<\/strong>” by Olivia Krugman “Looking for Possible Binary Star Systems through Spectroscopy and Radial Velocity Changes<\/strong>” by Maggie Bliese <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Colloquium this week gives our seniors a chance to tell us about their senior projects. We have two mid-project reports and one final report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":4531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19,22,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-announcements","category-physics-and-astronomy","category-physics-and-astronomy-announcements"],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Andrew Richter","author_link":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/author\/arichte1\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/07\/ValpoCampus7-Resized-300x192.webp","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Announcements<\/a>","Physics and Astronomy<\/a>","Physics and Astronomy Announcements<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Announcements<\/span>","Physics and Astronomy<\/span>","Physics and Astronomy Announcements<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 4 years ago","modified":"Updated 9 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on December 2, 2021","modified":"Updated on July 24, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on December 2, 2021 2:36 pm","modified":"Updated on July 24, 2025 10:15 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4162"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4189,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162\/revisions\/4189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I am plotting isochrones over star cluster data to find the ‘best fit’. The isochrone that fits the best will tell me the log age that I will compare to previously calculated data to see if I can achieve the same results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My talk is about searching for variability in Planetary Nebulae to see if they contain binary star systems at their center. I will also be describing once I determine binary candidates how I will use this information to run modeling and get parameters for these systems, with the system I am focusing on that is for Pa 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This project focused on measuring the Doppler shift in star’s spectra from potential binary star systems in planetary nebulae. Variability in the Doppler shift would indicate a binary system. Primarily, this project focused on white dwarf or near white dwarf stars to further explore the binary fraction of central stars of planetary nebulae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n