© Ziggy Pleunis/ASTRON

Last week four 2nd-year University of Amsterdam BSc students in physics & astronomy, Dominique, Dunya, Duran and Jua, visited ASTRON for three days as part of a one-week research project. While at ASTRON, the students enjoyed an engaging tour and observing session with the Dwingeloo Radio Telescope thanks to Tammo Jan Dijkema, a tour of the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telesope, a wonderful tour of the R&D labs by Mark Ruiter and of course a pannenkoek at the Bospub.

For their project the students measured the spin period of the first pulsar discovered by Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, B1919+21, in LOFAR data. They also analyzed a series of LOFAR observations of pulsar J1810+1744, a source discovered by Jason Hessels, and rediscovered that this pulsar is in an eclipsing binary system. They were able to estimate the mass of the pulsar's binary companion based on the changes in the pulsar spin period over time, from the Doppler shift induced by the binary orbit, and they observed how the free electron density in the line of sight towards the pulsar changes around the eclipse.

The students left with a good understanding of all it takes to design, build and operate a radio telescope and felt the joy of discovery when observations show something unexpected. Thank you to everyone at ASTRON for making the students feel welcome and hopefully we'll see some of them again soon for another research project in radio astronomy!