Beginner-friendly, two-week research projects introduce first-year undergraduates to galaxy astronomy using real data from SDSS and complementary surveys. Students explore how galaxies appear in different wavelengths, build and interpret spectral energy distributions (SEDs), investigate the effects of dust, and examine key relationships such as the star formation main sequence.
The projects emphasise discovery through visualisation, simple calculations, and colour analysis, using accessible tools like Excel or guided Jupyter notebooks.