SURF Cosmology School - Research Practices

Overview and links on astronomy research practices for the summer students.

Transcript

1. Research practices
   Daniel Lenz,
   SURF Cosmology School, June 22
   

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2. Introduction
   ❖ Brief overview on topics that take a while to get familiar with,
   don’t be overwhelmed :)
   ❖ Will show lots of examples - feel free to follow along on your
   laptop and ask lots of questions!
   ❖ List of links at the end, will also be available on our wiki and on
   Slack
   

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3. arXiv / astro-ph / ads
   ❖ (Almost) all articles written and published in astronomy are
   available on the arXiv
   ❖ astro-ph is the astronomy subset
   ❖ Astrophysics data system (ADS) is a search interface for most
   journals and the arXiv
   

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4. Latex and overleaf
   ❖ Latex is extremely
   widely used in all of
   physics, astronomy,
   math
   ❖ WYSINWYG, unlike
   other programs
   ❖ overleaf is a browser-
   based writing
   platform
   

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5. git / github / bitbucket
   ❖ Revision control software,
   invented by Linus Torvalds to
   maintain the Linux Kernel
   ❖ github and bitbucket are
   websites that host code, but
   also wikis, blogs, and websites
   

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6. Stackoverflow
   ❖ Stackoverflow is part of
   Stack Exchange
   ❖ Largest online community
   to share knowledge and
   ask questions
   

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7. NED/skyview
   ❖ NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), hosted at Caltech,
   "comprehensive database of multiwavelength data for
   extragalactic objects, providing a systematic, ongoing fusion of
   information integrated from hundreds of large sky surveys and
   tens of thousands of research publications"
   ❖ skyview, "the internet’s virtual telescope"
   

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8. Plotting Table practices
   

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9. Plotting Table practices
   

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10. Plotting practices
    ❖ How to display data badly, by Karl Broman
    ❖ http://genomicsclass.github.io/book/pages/
    plots_to_avoid.html
    

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11. astrobetter / blogs / jobregister
    ❖ Blogs can be a great source of advice for:
    ❖ Job applications, career paths
    ❖ Software
    ❖ Stats
    ❖ so much more!
    ❖ List of links available, please add your own!
    ❖ AAS job register is a (nearly) complete overview of all
    postdoc & faculty positions in astronomy
    

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12. Tools
    ❖ No fighting please!
    ❖ Good software doesn’t always come for free
    ❖ Editors:
    ❖ Atom, Sublime, emacs, vim
    ❖ Notes:
    ❖ Evernote, google docs
    ❖ Git:
    ❖ SourceTree, gitKraken, command line
    ❖ Documentation:
    ❖ dash
    ❖ Latex:
    ❖ Texpad, overleaf
    ❖ Communication:
    ❖ Slack, email, skype
    

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13. python
    ❖ Excellent
    summary by
    JakeVDP
    ❖ Keynote on
    youtube
    

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14. performance in python
    ❖ Often-overlooked: For day-to-
    day science,
    ❖ speed of development is
    primary
    ❖ speed of execution is often
    secondary
    

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16. python and jupyter
    ❖ anaconda is the quasi-standard for scientific python
    ❖ Basically three different modes:
    ❖ ipython, fully interactively
    ❖ python myscript.py
    ❖ jupyter notebooks
    ❖ Excellent documentation, examples, blogs, books, etc. for all of
    this!
    

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17. Wiki & Links
    ❖ Find all of the resources and much more here:
    ❖ https://github.com/Darksector326/CosmoCode
    

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