Fall 2010 AY 122 schedule
Instruction begins Tuesday 8/31: ends Tuesday
11/30.
Class meets 14 times. We begin a
new lab on the dates indicated below, and the lab report from the
previous
activity is due at 6:00PM on the day that we start a new lab, i.e., the
first
lab is due on September 14.
August
31
Lab
# 1: Photon Counting Experiment
September
7
14 Lab
#2: Astronomical Spectroscopy
21
28
Lab
#3:
Spectroscopy
using
the
Lick Observatory 3m Telescope (remotely
from Campbell Hall)
October
5
12 Lab #4:
Astronomical optical imaging
Fri Oct 15: observations with the Lick Observatory 1m Telescope
(remotely from Campbell Hall)
Sun Oct 17: observations with the Lick Observatory 1m Telescope
(remotely from Campbell Hall)
Mon Oct 18: observations with the Lick Observatory 1m Telescope
(remotely from Campbell Hall)
19
26
November
2
Lab
#5:
Analysis
of
near-infrared Adaptive Optics images from the Keck,
Gemini and VLT observatories
9
Sat Nov 13: Field trip to Lick Observatory
(visit of 1m and 3m telescopes)
16
Lab
#6: Analysis of Hubble Space Telescope images
23
30 Wrap-up
session
Handouts
In addition to the descriptions of the labs, the
following
handouts provide additional background information that will be
helpful. The
handouts are listed in the approximate order that they will be used.
- Sample & parent distributions
- Quantities describing distributions:
mean, median, & mode
- Measure of width
- Expectation value
- Distributions: binomial; Poisson;
Gaussian
- Combining two observations,
covariance, and error propagation
- Application to error of the mean
- What you should include in your lab
report
- Some guidelines regarding style and
content
- Computer representation of numbers
& computer arithmetic
- Numerical algorithms and when they fail
- Dispersion and diffraction
- Basics spectrometer layout
- The grating equation and grating blaze
- Dispersion & spectral resolution.
- The USB 2000
Spectrometer
- Least squares to fit a straight line
- Introducing matrix arithmetic in IDL
- How to compute the weighted mean using
maximum likelihood
- Error propagation to find the error in
the weighted mean.
- How to fit a straight line
Field trip
- What you need to know for the field
trip to Lick Observatory.
- The celestial sphere, observers� and
celestial coordinate systems.
- Rising and setting, and sidereal time.
- How an equatorial telescope mount
works and some of the elements of a Cassegrain telescope.
- Follows a photon from a distant star,
throught the atmosphere, reflection at the telescope mirrors, through
the filter and into the CCD.
- Discusses systematic errors: dark
current and flat field errors.
- Introduces the stellar centroid and
gives and example of IDL code.
- The photoelectric effect
- Charge transfer mechanism
- CCD properties and deficiencies
- A simple CCD noise model using
elementary error propagation
- How to find the gain assuming Poisson
statistics
- Definition of the center of light and
width of a star.
- Error propagation exercise to find the
error in the centroid.
- Equations of condition
- Application of least squares and the
matrix norm
- Moore-Penrose pseudo inverse
- Some examples
- Fundamental definitions and basic
properties of Fourier transforms.
- Convolution & the convolution
theorem.
- Discrete Fourier transforms
- Sampling and interpolation
- Conversion from solar latitude and
longitude to Cartesian coordinates
- Rotation matrices to apply geometric
transformations
- How to compute the line of sight
velocity