Guidelines for Writing Scientific Paper Summarizing Observations

Your course paper should be about 5 pages long. Use 10 – 12 pt font, single-spacing, margins between 0.8 and 1.2 in. Figures, graphs, and tables say much more in a lot less space than text. Be sure to introduce your figures, graphs, and tables from within the body of your paper. Captions should explain what the reader should be understanding from the figures, graphs, and tables.

Collaborate with fellow team members or other class members who are working on the same object(s) or project that you are. Just make sure the writing is your own. You may choose any one or more of the object(s) you observed. One could never have imagined before this class started that you all would have been so successful, so talented, so adept at observing that you would get over a dozen globular clusters, plus nebula, open clusters, and galaxies all in a few hours!

Your paper should follow the standard format for a scientific paper based upon empirical data. That is, it should have the following parts:

Title

• follow your title with your name as first author, and then list the rest of your observation team members in alphabetical order
• put down the date your paper was submitted to your instructor

Abstract

• the reader should obtain a complete overview of what-how-when-why you did the observations and want to read the rest of the paper
• summarize the results of your observations in a few sentences at the end of the abstract

Introduction

Bring the reader up-to-date on the object(s) or the method you are writing about. Often, this is as far as most readers get -- make it worth their while, entice them to keep reading further.

• If you are writing about a specific object such as a planetary nebula, or a star-forming region and nebula, or a galaxy, include a short summary of what is already known about it.
• If you are going to include all of the globular clusters, then put in a general summary of this class of star groupings. You will go into specifics about each cluster in another section.

Then, state why you observed the object(s) you did, and list the sections that are to follow.

Observations

Here is where you specify the date of the observations, the sky conditions, the location, the telescope and other instruments used.

Here is a start:

A-Wing Observatory (AWO) University of Washington Physics Astronomy Building

Meade LX200GPS 12" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, f/10

ST-8XME CCD Kodak KAF-1603ME + TI TC-237
Pixel Array 1530 x 1020 pixels, 13.8 x 9.2 mm; Pixel Size 9 x 9 microns

Make a table that gives all of the details about the object(s) you are writing about. Include the date, time of observation, object name, filters, exposure time, CCD temperature, RA and dec of the object -- basically reproducing our log book. If you have only one object, you need not have the table on one line only.

Data Reduction and Discussion of Results (combine sections)

For all choices:

• Summarize the steps you took to get your final image(s)
• Show your results for each step (not normally done, but that's what this paper is all about). This means putting in a picture of a) the image of the average of your flat fields, b) the image of the average of your dark frames for your flat field, c) the image of the average of your dark frames for your object image, d) the pre-processed raw object image, e) the object image - dark, f) the flatfield - dark, and finally g) the fully processed object image. Make these particular images small enough that they do not dominate the paper.
• If you processed all of the images of the globular clusters, choose just one cluster for an example

For choosing a "pretty picture" for your paper

• Write up an interesting paragraph specifically about what your image is and how it compares to other images
• Write a few paragraphs explaining things about your object: what do we know about it? how far away is it?

Choosing to write generally about all of the images of the globular clusters

• Include all of the images for the clusters
• Summarize in a few sentences what we know already about each cluster.

Summary

Wrap up your paper, leaving the reader with a summary what you accomplished. Emphasize the positive. For dealing with any negative points, don't bring out what went wrong. Rather, emphasize what procedures will be modified in the future that will improve or enhance what you did here.

References

You should have at least three outside references. Use accepted citation forms for books, literature, papers, internet research.