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Caleb Peña

Ms. Lindsey

Internship

30 November 2020

Institute for Astronomy Internship

This summer, I interned with the Institute for Astronomy with Dr. J.D. Armstrong as my

mentor. I decided to do an internship focused on astronomy because I plan on becoming an

astrophysicist, and I wanted to get an idea of what type of work they do on a day-to-day basis.

There are also different types of objects to study in this area, so I wanted to pinpoint exciting

objects with a professional astrophysicist’s help.

My internship was done through MEDB STEMworks Summer Internship, meaning they

did the coordination between the host company. I first had to meet with them to confirm my

attendance and which host company I will choose for my internship. In this meeting, we

discussed the requirements needed to earn your stipend. These included a minimum of 60 hours,

logging a timesheet, creating a bio for yourself and your mentor, meet once a week to discuss

what you’ve done so far, signing an MOU form, and giving a presentation at the end of your

internship.

Once we discussed these requirements with MEDB, each intern was given their mentor’s

contact information. I also found out that I was doing this internship with another Kihei Charter

student. This made contacting and socializing with them more comfortable because of

familiarity. Once I met with J.D. and Amanda (the other intern), we decided on meeting at least

twice a week, more if needed. We also went through a slideshow he prepared for us that went
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through the basics of astronomy. But before he started the presentation, he asked us what we

wanted to do in Astronomy; our answers would determine our work. I was interested in

exoplanets, and Amanda was interested in the programming aspect of astronomy. With this, he

decided that our project will be focusing on exoplanets; more specifically, we were going to

observe exoplanets using transit photometry. This method measures the intensity of light coming

from a star in which an exoplanet orbits. With hundreds or even thousands of photos over a

specific period, we can observe an exoplanet’s transit period. After researching these basics, we

were shown how to operate the Aperture Photometry Tool, an application used to measure a

star’s brightness from an image.

For my part of the project, I went through the process of manually taking transit

photometry measurements. For the process, we would select three stars, the target star (which

has the exoplanet orbiting it), a reference star (which should be of similar size to the target star),

and a check star to ensure the measurements we’re taking are correct. Once you do that around

200 times, you put the results into a spreadsheet. The main thing we want to focus on is the

source intensity column. Once we have all three stars’ intensity, we divide the Target and Check

star intensity by the reference star intensity. We do this during ground observations to get rid of

Atmospheric Extinction because Atmospheric Extinction reduces stellar objects’ brightness.

I had to do this three separate times, two of which were done manually. For the third

time, I would learn Amanda’s side of the project. J.D. stated that programming is a regular and

crucial aspect of Astronomy and thought I should start learning about it. Amanda’s part of the

project was to try to automate the process of measuring numerous images and processing the

data. By this time, they had already figured out a method of automating the process that I was

manually doing, so all I had to do was learn the basics of coding with Amanda’s help. Once I
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finished that up, the only thing left was to present what we’ve learned to MEDB STEMworks.

The biggest reason why I decided to take this internship was that I wanted an idea of

some of the work that astronomers do. It’s one thing to go to college and learn the same material

as an astrophysicist, but that won’t help me understand what type of work they do on a day-to-

day basis. Doing this internship was crucial in deciding if I want to continue to pursue this major.

Although this piece was relatively small, I still found it very interesting and fun to figure out. I

also learned many new things about astronomy through this internship and even learned a bit of

coding, so I would say I met my goals.

The three 21st Century skills I used the most during this internship were Information,

Thinking and Problem Solving, and Self-Directional Skills. For this entire internship, I had to

manage my time efficiently and complete the tasks given to me by myself. I also researched

topics that I was interested in that related to our project on my own time to get a better

understanding. My biggest problem/challenge during this internship had to be coding since it was

my first time. I did most of my work late at night, so I couldn’t ask Amanda or J.D. for help with

difficulties I had with coding, so I did thorough research to try and figure out the problem. I

would be up for hours troubleshooting various solutions to find the correct answer eventually.

Taking this internship has helped me get an idea of what I’ll be going into if I decide to pursue

Astrophysics after high school. This internship was a necessary make or break situation because

I don’t want to waste money and time on something I wouldn’t end up enjoying. It also taught

me that I wouldn’t get paid if I don’t meet my “employer’s” requirements.