Overview: Astro Sprint

As a result of disruption of regular classes due to COVID-19, UG and PG students are losing on precious time. In the present times, is an avalanche of high-quality astronomy data from various facilities, ground and space-based. As a pilot study, we had a Six-Day Astronomy Online School. With the help of short videos, we introduced important concepts in astronomy to participants. We had 470 registrations and 195 participants who have answered our quiz. Our website is : https://wp.me/PaWcxR-3i. We have our feedbacks too from the session.The videos were online where interaction with participants was active. They are still available on youtube in our channel. We can repeat the introductory school followed by a Six-Day Session where participants will be shown step-by-step techniques of accessing and analysing astronomy data in various wavelengths from the internet. We shall introduce them to virtual observatory tools and programmimg techniques to address some sample problems. In the third session, students can plan and formulate project ideas of varying complexity, which we shall mentor. Hopefully, if the pandemic situation improves, we shall have an Astro Sprint session of 5-6 days where participants can physically meet, or in case it’s not possible for foreign participants, we have an online meeting with a Sprint format or a combination of both. On the first day, participants propose their project ideas and build a team of interested group members. The next 5 days will be spent to actually have a work plan and the clumination will be presentation of their projects. The areas we will focus on will be observations of stars, star clusters and galaxies. In case students would like some other areas we can invite mentors in other areas. We shall also have special sessions on Report Writing, publishing and presenting in scientific journals. This plays a very important role in research methodology. And videos will be in Hindi/Urdu and English for better inclusion.

Contact: Priya Shah, S N Hasan, priya.hasan@gmail.com