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General Information

Credits: 3 (PHY 517) or 4 (AST 443)

Instructor: Anja von der Linden (anja.vonderlinden 'at' stony brook.edu, ESS 453)

Office hours: TBD

TAs:

• Radhakrishnan Srinivasan (Radhakrishnan.Srinivasan 'at' stonybrook.edu), office hours TBD or by appointment
• TBD

Suggested texts:

• Measuring the Universe, G. Rieke (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
• Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences, P.R. Bevington & D. K. Robinson (McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2003)
• Practical Statistics for Astronomers, J.V. Wall & C.R. Jenkins (Cambridge University Press, 2008)

Prerequisites: AST203 (Astronomy), PHY277 (Computation for Physics and Astronomy), WRT102 (Intermediate Writing Workshop)

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Class times are Mondays and Wednesdays, 4:25-7:25pm (on zoom) and will be scheduled either as lectures, tutorials, or computing lab time, i.e. the possibility to work on the data analysis in the presence of the instructor / the TAs. In addition, the labs need to be scheduled with the TAs. Lab 1 is to be completed during day-time, independent of the weather. For Lab 2, expect to schedule 3 night-time observing sessions - you need to be flexible for the weather!

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Description

Astronomers explore the universe by detecting and analyzing light from all over the electromagnetic spectrum. We concentrate on a subset of techniques for detection of photons at visible wavelengths.

This is a lab course, focused on obtaining and analyzing astronomical data with optical telescopes. Students will work in groups of two or three to conduct three distinct observational experiments. In Lab 1, students measure properties of astronomical cameras and develop a calibration scheme for optical imaging. In Lab 2, students will acquire time-series photometry of an exoplanet transit using the rooftop telescope. For Lab 3, students will write a project proposal to analyze data available in public telescope archives (such as the Hubble Space Telescope). The students will be responsible for setting up and calibrating the telescope equipment, obtaining their own data, analyzing the data, and reporting their work in lab reports written in the style of scientific papers. %These lab reports form the majority (70%) of the points to be earned in this course.

The lecture component is intimately intertwined with the experimental aspects of the course. The students will learn the basics of practical observational astronomy, such as determining the observability of select targets, telescope and detector technology, the use of photometric and spectroscopic techniques, and methods of error, statistical, and time-series analysis. A limited number of homework sets will be assigned to facilitate comprehension of the lecture material.

Data analysis will be performed using standard astronomy software packages. In addition, students will need to familiarize themselves with standard Linux tools (such as bash scripting), as well as one general-purpose programming language such as python. Tutorials will be provided during class-time and/or as homework.

For Lab 3, the project on archival data, the students will write project proposals and conduct a peer-review of all proposals. The proposal will emphasize the need for generating a testable hypothesis and justifying it through expected signal-to-noise or other appropriate statistical arguments. The peer evaluations will serve to assess the evaluator's ability to critically assess the quality of the other proposals.

Towards the end of the course, the students will prepare a final oral or poster presentation on one of the projects.