In one of my astronomy classes, we had a semester long project to measure and present results using photometry or spectroscopy. I decided to measure the period of a variable star known as DY Peg. Every week I would travel to Lowell, Massachusetts and sit in the (literally) freezing nights with my telescope, lining it up to capture data from the target star, and analyzing the results. During the course we learned lots about data measurement, signal-to-noise reduction, and research paper writing. In the end, we presented our findings as a research paper and oral presentation. Here are some illustrative clips from my research paper (which I have if you are interested in reading about my process and results!). They show my journey from data collection, through processing to the results compared to more professional scientists. My error bar was HUGE, but my mean data was pretty close which was awesome to see.
