Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons^™

Automated Morgan Keenan Classification Of Observed Stellar Spectra Collected By The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Using A Single Classifier, Michael J. Brice, Răzvan Andonie

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

The classification of stellar spectra is a fundamental task in stellar astrophysics. Stellar spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey are applied to standard classification methods, k-nearest neighbors and random forest, to automatically classify the spectra. Stellar spectra are high dimensional data and the dimensionality is reduced using astronomical knowledge because classifiers work in low dimensional space. These methods are utilized to classify the stellar spectra into a complete Morgan Keenan classification (spectral and luminosity) using a single classifier. The motion of stars (radial velocity) causes machine-learning complications through the feature matrix when classifying stellar spectra. Due to the nature …