There is one very big difference between studying the Sun and other stars. Because of the huge distances we are only able to see stars as dots in the sky, so we can't directly see any details on their surface. That makes my job much more difficult. We have to use our knowledge of the Sun to see if we can find similar features and events on other stars.

Other stars like the Sun have a corona, stellarspots (not sunspots!) and some of them have flares. We are probably very lucky that our Sun is very quiet compared to some other stars. For example there are stars which have flares millions of times stronger than the strongest flare recorded on the Sun.

I study stellar atmospheres and flares. Stellar flares are similar to those we observe on the Sun. Here are some spectra of the star AD Leo. In the image each horizontal line is an individual spectrum (so time goes bottom to top and wavelength goes left to right) and a spectrum was recorded every three seconds with a four meter telescope on the island of La Palma. The bright strip in the middle of the picture shows the beginning of the flare. By studying the spectrum of the flare I can find out it characteristics and compare it with solar flares.

180 spectra of the star AD Leo recorded on March 14 1998 from La Palma

Besides travelling to far out (literally!) places all around the world to make the observations, I also have to analyse the data and make mathematical models on the computer. I must solve some equations using a computer with as much power as possible. I can then compare my calculations with the observational data.

Here is a plot of calculations I did which compares observed and modelled flare data on the very active star AD Leo. I have plotted the intensity or brightness of the flare which I measured in two spectral lines from Hydrogen. The curve is my calculations and the dots are the observations. Although there is some agreement between the observations and the predicted curve, the differences suggest I still have some work to do!

Observed and calculated light curve for the flare on AD Leo. Dots and squares are observations and solid lines are calculations.