Detecting Supernovas with Python

by Pippin Lee

Python Astronomy Machine Learning

There's a telescope that sits on a mountaintop in the Chilean desert––its job is to capture and help scientists understand the dark matter of our universe. But this isn't a talk just about dark matter, it's about discovering fleeting supernovas in space, while discovering the world of Python.

When you're new to a programming language, they tell you to find a problem that will keep your interest. One year, and 1 million images of space later, we now have the best model for classifying supernovas. The funny thing is, it's actually pretty easy––thanks to Python's open source and data science world. This talk is a quick walk-through of lessons learned while developing with Python, and proving that writing supernova detection code isn't just for astronomers.

About the Author

Pippin builds interfaces and tools to help make machine learning more usable at Dessa. He also spends time researching how deep learning techniques can help astronomers with space2vec.

Author website: http://www.space2vec.com/