RUI: Accuracy of Methods Determining Eclipsing Binary Times of Conjunction

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This grant concerns eclipsing binary stars. Caton will improve on methods to extract from eclipse data a more nearly exact time of light minimum and an estimate in the errors of that time. The procedure will be developed using the computer program of Wilson and Devinney for binaries with eccentric orbits and spotted stars. An observing program will be continued. Most stars occur in binary pairs. A few binaries move about each other so that one star eclipses the other. The timing of eclipses yields orbital periods, which inform us about the stars, and sometimes changes in orbital periods with time, which inform us about gases leaving the system or transferring from one star to the other. This grant is to seek more accurate methods to detect the slow changes in orbital periods. The grant is made under the Research in Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) Program and is the first astronomy research grant both to this investigator and to his institution.