{"id":600002,"date":"2024-04-02T13:41:50","date_gmt":"2024-04-02T17:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=600002"},"modified":"2025-12-01T13:45:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T18:45:51","slug":"nasa-citizen-cate-2024-students-study-total-solar-eclipse-600002","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/nasa-citizen-cate-2024-students-study-total-solar-eclipse-600002\/","title":{"rendered":"First-year students help NASA study the total solar eclipse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rochester has one of about 30 teams nationwide taking observations for the Citizen CATE 2024 experiment.<\/h2>\n

When a total solar eclipse passes over Rochester, New York, on April 8, three first-year Ä¢¹½´«Ã½<\/a> students will help NASA study the sun\u2019s corona. Asad Shahab \u201927, an applied math<\/a> major, along with computer science<\/a> majors Adam Bowen \u201927 and Michael Koomson \u201927 formed one of more than 30 teams nationwide\u2014from Maine to Texas\u2014participating in the Citizen CATE 2024 experiment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The experiment, coordinated by the Southwest Research Institute in partnership with NASA, aims to understand how the sun\u2019s corona varies across the\u00a0solar activity cycle<\/a>. It will compare analyses between 2017, shortly before solar minimum, and 2024, near solar maximum. Stitching together recordings from more than 30 points along the eclipse\u2019s path will provide scientists more than an hour of observations of the sun\u2019s corona, which is normally difficult to study because it is millions of times dimmer than the sun\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

Shahab stumbled upon the project when he saw an online ad soliciting participants. He viewed it as a chance to continue the astrophotography hobby he developed as a child.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a telescope back home in Pakistan and my mother got me active with it when I was eight or nine,\u201d says Shahab. \u201cAstrophotography has been a hobby of mine for a long time and when I saw the Google ad looking for participants, I thought, \u2018I have to do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Three
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK:<\/strong> Ä¢¹½´«Ã½ undergraduate students (l to r) Adam Bowen, Asad Shahab, and Michael Koomson will track the sun throughout the entirety of the eclipse on April 8, taking images at regular intervals for NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Shahab asked Bowen and Koomson, two of his friends from his dormitory floor, if they wanted to join him. The trio applied and was chosen to lead efforts for the region despite other competitive applications from the Rochester area.<\/p>\n

NASA provided the team a telescope, mount, camera, laptop, and other equipment for taking their observations. The telescope will be outfitted with a solar filter and will track the sun throughout the entirety of the eclipse, taking images at regular intervals. When the moon is completely covering the sun, the students will remove the filter and record a video of the solar eclipse in totality.<\/p>\n

Shahab says he\u2019s excited to contribute to such meaningful research and is honored to represent Rochester as a member of the nationwide citizen science team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho doesn\u2019t want to participate in something sponsored by NASA? It\u2019s a dream,\u201d says Shahab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rochester has one of about 30 teams nationwide taking observations for the Citizen CATE 2024 experiment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1242,"featured_media":600412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[40762,18802,23492,42502,18632,16072,20932],"class_list":["post-600002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community","tag-class-of-2027","tag-department-of-computer-science","tag-department-of-mathematics","tag-eclipse","tag-hajim-school-of-engineering-and-applied-sciences","tag-school-of-arts-and-sciences","tag-undergraduate-research"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFirst-year students help NASA study the total solar eclipse<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Ä¢¹½´«Ã½ has one of about 30 teams nationwide taking observations for NASA's Citizen CATE 2024 experiment.\" \/>\n<meta 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