Lab Reports - bradfordbenson/ASTR21200_2025 GitHub Wiki

Lab reports are to be written in the style of jupyter notebook (Labs 1 and 2), or a scientific journal article (Lab 3). Each student has to hand in their own lab report. Code and plots can be the same within a lab group; however, the description should be entirely your own.

For both types of reports, the aim it to provide a complete description of your work. Somebody who reads the report should be able to understand exactly what you did, and why you dit it, and (in principle) implement the same analysis steps and arrive at the same results.

Please send the report as pdf file on Canvas.

General guidance

Make sure to understand your analysis. It will be obvious when you don’t, and we will take points off.
Write your lab report like a scientific paper. Every sentence should be precise and meaningful; be concise in your language, don't use too much fluff (e.g., unnecessary, or ill-defined, adjectives); and write in proper English.

Jupyter Notebook-style lab reports

Jupyter Notebook-style reports should be written in the style of a tutorial, imagine you are instructing another student on how to work with the data in the lab. Note that we do not want to read your code (though we might need to in case your description is unclear).

Title and author list are as for a paper-style report.

A notebook-style report does not need an abstract or introduction, though you're welcome to add them if you want or think it helps set the context.

The report will be composed of many small sub-sections. The structure of the sub-section should be as following:

A markdown box which discusses the goal of the subsection, and how you are going to achieve it. For example, this is where you would state what the read noise is, and how you are going to measure read noise. If the lab has subsection labels, please make sure to include the number (e.g., section 4.1).
A code box which does what you just described, and outputs a result (i.e., a plot (or plots), a number, an image, etc.).
A markdown box which summarizes the result (remember to use the correct number of scientific digits!) and places it in context (e.g. comparison to literature).

Note that notebook-style reports have to be submitted as pdfs. One way of creating a pdf from the notebook is the "Print Preview" menu. Make sure that the pdf is complete, and none of your boxes got cut off!

Paper-style lab reports

Paper-style lab reports have to be written in Latex with the AASTeX template. The structure should be as follows:

Title

Titles need to be descriptive. "Lab 2 report" is not descriptive, state what you actually did. For example, you might say the name of the galaxy, exoplanet, astronomical object you observed and what you measured (e.g., A Measurement of the Hubble Constant using the Physical Size of Local Galaxies; A Search for Exoplanet Transits near the Orion Nebula; Constraining the Variability of RR Lyrae Stars in M31, etc.)

Author List

List your name first, then those of your co-author(s) / lab partners. Make sure to add your affiliations; ours is: Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA

Abstract

The abstract is your "30 second elevator speech" to somebody with a similar physics/astronomy background as yourself. It is NOT the introduction. Make sure to include pertinent information about what you did (e.g. again "exoplanet", "transit" and the name of the target, as well as observatory name, date of observations, and the filter used), about the results (e.g. the results for the measured transit depth, with uncertainty, as well as results on the duration and timing), and a statement whether these agree with expectations / results in the literature.

Introduction

The introduction is the place where you need to describe the background and the motivation for you measurement, and a brief preview of your work. Start with the big picture (e.g. what are exoplanets? Why are they interesting?). Briefly describe what is known about your target. State what you are planning to do in the lab / report, e.g. confirm the predicted transit, measure the transit depth (or planet radius), as well as its timing. The last paragraph of the introduction is a brief outline of the paper, e.g. "In Section 2, we ..."

Target selection

Can be its own section, or part of the introduction.

Section: "Data" / "Observations"

Describe how you acquired your data, and describe them. You need to include the observatory name, the date of the observations, general conditions (clouds, moon), and any issues that you encountered (e.g. a focus shift). You generally also should include a table of observations that summarizes the data that you acquired. It should state, e.g., the number of exposures, the exposure time, the filter, whether auto-dark was on or off. It is a good idea to include the calibration data here, as well. (Remember that table captions go on top of a table, not below.)

"Data Analysis" / "Data Reduction"

Describe how you analyzed the original data, in detail. E.g. state how you processed and applied the calibration data (note that "applying" the flat-field is too vague), your steps for astrometric calibration, running Source extractor, concatenating the lightcurve and correcting for atmospheric variability with the reference stars. Make sure to include pertinent figures that support the description, e.g. an image with the target star and reference stars labeled (and including a compass and scale bar), an image that illustrates your choice of photometric aperture, the lightcurves of the reference stars, and the calibrated lightcurve of the target star.

"Results" -- note that there can be several (sub-)sections, e.g. "Transit Depth", "Transit Duration and Timing"

Describe your science measurements on the derived data (here, the lightcurve), and the results. Where available, state how your results compare to the literature. Do NOT split up things unnecessarily into the analysis vs. results section, but rather make sure to keep a red thread. Example: when describing your measurement of the transit depth, the measurement process (starting from the measured lightcurve), the result, and the comparison to the literature should all be within the same (sub-)section.

"Summary" / "Discussion" / "Conclusion" (or mix & match!)

In the last paragraph, briefly summarize what you did, and your results (include the measured values and uncertainties). (Re-)state how they compare to the literature. Discuss any issues that you encountered, and how they might have affected your results.

References

Make sure to use BiBTeX to manage your citations; it will automatically produce the References section.

Appendix

Extra stuff goes here. Note: you are encouraged to submit your code (e.g. in a notebook) along with your lab report.