This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Note: this page dates from the offering of the course in spring semester 2014. I've left the page here in hopes that the material may be of use to others who are teaching or learning about this subject. I've also added a new assignment I created in spring 2016 (bottom of the page) on detection of gravitational waves. If you find these materials useful, I'd love to hear from you!
This course covers many of the research tools used by astronomers. These include instruments used to observe at wavelengths across the electromagnetic spectrum; techniques for photometry, spectroscopy, and interferometry; various methods by which images are processed and data are analyzed; and use of online resources including data archives and bibliographic databases. Students will perform observational and data analysis projects throughout the semester.
Our text is To Measure the Sky: An Introduction to Observational Astronomy, by Fred Chromey (Cambridge, 2010). Errata for the book are available.
Here is a document with course policies, contact info, topics to be covered, etc.
Unless otherwise stated, problems are due by 9 AM Thursday each week.
Week 2 (Thursday, January 30):
Statistics applied in an astronomical context, including propagation
of uncertainties, and the Poisson distribution.
Problems are due by 9 AM Thursday.
Week 3 (Thursday, February 6):
Figuring out where things are, and when: Astronomical coordinate
systems and measurements of time.
This week's readings and problems.
Week 4 (Thursday, February 13):
Tools of the astronomer: on-line catalogs, search engines, databases,
and utilities. Also, we'll plan and carry out some observations
this week.
This week's readings and problems.
Week 5 (Thursday, February 20):
CCD characteristics; basics of how CCDs work, and a chance to make
measurements to characterize our own CCD's properties.
This week's readings and problems.
IRAF intro tutorial
exercise (optional)
Week 6 (Thursday, February 27):
Photometry: measuring light quantitatively.
This week's readings and problems.
Week 7 (Thursday, March 6):
Midterm exam, during seminar time. Closed book except for Bevington
& Robinson and/or Taylor's stats / error analysis books.
Some exam info, review topics, and practice problems.
Week 8 (Thursday, March 20):
Telescopes and optics
This week's readings and problems.
Week 9 (Thursday, March 27):
Adaptive optics and the atmosphere.
This week's readings and problems.
Week 10 (Thursday, April 3):
Absolute photometry, and model fitting to data.
This week's readings and problems.
Week 11 (Thursday, April 10):
Spectroscopy, part 1.
This week's readings and problems.
Week 12 (Thursday, April 17):
Spectroscopy, part 2.
This week's readings and problems.
Week 13 (Thursday, April 24):
Infrared telescopes, instrumentation, and observing.
This week's readings and problems.
Week 14 (Thursday, May 2):
Overview of x-ray and radio astronomy.
This week's readings and problems.
Alternate Week 14 assignment from Spring 2016:
Detection of gravitational waves.
This week's readings and problems.
Who is providing seminar break food this week?
All materials created by Eric Jensen <ejensen1@swarthmore.edu>.
Sharing and re-use encouraged. If you find these materials useful, or if you have any comments or corrections, I'd appreciate a quick e-mail to let me know. Thanks!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Last modified: Mon Apr 25 10:42:51 EDT 2016