The Write-Up

I'm just starting to work on the write-up (which will hopefully turn into a publishable paper) on my observations of low mass stars over 5 months with the Lick 3-m telescope and a combination of the Hamilton Echelle Spectrometer and the Kast Dual Spectrometer.

First comes The Big Table, for which I need measured equivalent widths for H-alpha and Li. So I need to go back over all my old data and re-calculate my EWs to make sure I still agree with myself. One of our undergrads (Nicole Arulanantham) has already done this for our August data. Our method is to plot the spectra using IRAF's splot package, then measure the equivalent width using a Voigt profile fit (hit k, then v on either side of the line, making sure to include the flux in the wings). We do this a few times (~5) and take the average. This is because there is some intrinsic error in the calculation - the EW will depend on where you place the continuum level (where you cut off the wings).