Priorities

Today marks the end of week 4. I thought I'd take a moment to pause and reflect. The first month has seen fewer results than I had initially hoped. The completeness stuff is taking much longer than expected due to all the problems I'm having. I will be VERY glad to have all of that behind me. However, it seems to finally be almost together. I've also set it aside at times to get ahead on other things, so while there aren't a lot of results to show, I have gotten around to a lot. A recap for posterity:

Done
1. UMD cosmology meeting
2. 1st draft of intro and data sections of the paper
3. Bright artificial star tests
4. Completeness calculation of said tests
5. Near-convergence on the real artificial star tests
6. Distance calculation (all but the distance uncertainty calculation)

To Do
1. Perhaps obviously, completeness tests are back to being my #1 priority. I already have the code to calculate the completeness (once it's working properly!). Once I have reliable results there will be a lot of Allframe action.

2. Revising the first two sections of the paper.

3. Once I've calculated completeness and photometric uncertainty, I need to include these parameters in the distance calculation and finalize that.

4. I can then use the completeness limit to properly calculate ML results. The only calculation I really need to check on is the surface brightness. I believe the ML code already does it, or at least makes it easy to do, but I'll make sure the calculation is ready to go before the ASTs are finished.

5. The resulting number of stars provided by ML will then be input into the absolute magnitude code and that can be finalized.

6. Using the completeness limit and the best matched fiducial at the appropriate distance, I can finalize the morphology.

7. The structural parameters will inform the simulation that Beth and/or I probably just need to start over on to correct.

8. Paper Paper Paper--When all is said and done it should be relatively straightforward to write up all the results. I've got my thesis to work from and also Beth's 2006 paper. I plan to write bits and pieces and I go, in the order mentioned above.

9. Analysis Manual--Along the way, I also need to finish the document that describes how I've done all this. A lot is included already, but I've indicated where I need to add detail. I also need to include a lot more information about the Allframe portion and need to add a section for the Artificial Star Tests. There's also a lot of formatting that needs to get done. This is fairly low priority at the moment because this is something that could technically be finished even after I leave here, though I hope to make some time before then.