Imaging  Complex Astronomical Objects
Starts November 6, 2012
Due December 4, 2012

Lab 5 Instructions

Important note:
We will be observing on the Leuschner Observatory 1m telescope throughout this lab. This will be done remotely from the Undergraduate Lab. Each group will sign up in advance for a night (although you may only observe for part of the night in practice).

The telescope is reserved for use by SFSU students on Mondays, Tuesday and Thursday up to 11pm. If you observe after that time, make sure to double check that there is no activity in the dome (using the webcam) before you start your own observing.

Equipment:
The CCD camera on the Leuschner Observatory 1m telescope.

Leuschner Observatory webpage  (includes some weather links and a webcam)

Weather links:
West Coast satellite animation (visible)
West Coast satellite animation (infrared)
West Coast satellite animation (water vapor)
7-day forecast from the National Weather Service

Resources:
Introduction to 3-color imaging (pdf)
Displaying and annotating images (pdf)

Useful Links:
Colors of Main Sequence stars
Wavelength dependence of extinction

Landolt Bright Photometric Standards Catalog (watch out for the fact that the coordinates are given in B1950.0 epoch!)
Landolt Faint Photometric Standards Catalog (watch out for the fact that the coordinates are given in J2000.0 epoch!)
Oja's Northern Photometric Standards (only some of them have RI observation, unfortunately)
Aladin
(a sky atlas software with links to many catalogs)
SIMBAD
(where all astronomers learn basic facts about astronomical objects)
Observability tool
(a tool to determine the observability of an object over a certain period - use Lick Observatory as a proxy for Leuschner)
Airmass calculator (a tool to determine the observability of an object on an hour per hour basis - use Lick Observatory as a proxy for Leuschner)
2MASS Near-Infrared Image Catalog
A Handy Finding Chart Generator
  

UGAstro      UC Berkeley Astronomy      UC Berkeley