Final Year Project Ideas: Astronomy with a Celestron Telescope

[Cyclotron]

Hi there,

I am entering my 3rd year of my physics degree and I recently purchased a Celestron 11'' Schmidt Cassegrain telescope. My lecturer advised me before the summer holidays to work on an area of astronomy/astrophysics for my final year project.
Would anyone have any ideas on what I could do it on also using the telescope? I start back at the beginning of October and the project starts aroun January. Its a good time away so I have plenty of time to think it through.
Thanks

 

[russ_watters]

Find an already discovered exoplanet and then join the search for new ones.

Humans have been speculating on the existence of worlds around other Suns for thousands of years, but there was no evidence that any existed until the first discovery was made in 1995. Since then, more than 100 extrasolar planets have been detected around solar-type stars. Some of these planets are large, about the size of Jupiter, very hot because of their proximity to the star, and orbit their parent stars every few days at a short distance. Because these "hot Jupiters" have such small orbits, there are a significant fraction of them crossing the disks of their parent stars, an event called a transit. These transits are likely enough, frequent enough, and obvious enough that ground-based transit searches made by experienced amateur astronomers can be succesful.

http://www.aavso.org/observing/programs/ccd/transitsearch.shtml

 

[neutrino]

Observe variable stars, look for novae (check the site Russ provided for both), or time asteroid/star/planet occultations by the Moon - http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/iotandx.htm .

 

[Cyclotron]

That is what I always dreamed of going into after my education ie planet hunting. This is amazing! The problem is though I live in Dublin, and Dublin does not offer any high mountains to escape some of the atmospheric noise.. Is it still possible to observe from sea level? Also clear nights often rare in this country too.