Yashodhan's Research

Variable stars are those stars whose apparent observed brightness varies with time. Lightcurves of these stars can show a remarkable elegance and periodic behaviour. We can see stars expanding and contracting in precise ways, stars eclipsing smaller stars and gigantic explosions on the surface of white dwarfs through this study. They provide time series data for studying stellar dynamics and evolution. Variable stars are also used for measuring distances to stars, star clusters or galaxies. Their study is essential in understanding the evolution of our galaxy. In this project we discovered new variable stars from scanned old photographs of a certain part of the sky. The photographic plates were borrowed from the Moscow plate collection, and they were taken between 1983 and 1996. The plates covered a large portion of the sky and the images were captured consistently. The text is a master’s project report. It prepares the background, exhibits the tools, illustrates the process of discovery, showcases the discoveries made in this project, explains the physics of variability and talks about the scope for machine learning applications.