Ay/Ge 107 Introduction to Astronomical Observation (Spring 2024)
Instructors (Spring 2024): Katherine de Kleer, Lynne Hillenbrand
Units: 9; Grading: Letter grade [students should be aware that time commitment is high for a 9-unit course; course will be offered for 12 units beginning in the 2024-2025 academic year to more accurately represent workload]
Pre-requisite: CS1 or equivalent coding experience recommended
Logistical Information, please review prior to registering:
Class meeting time: 11am-12noon Weds/Fri (251 Arms) - attendance required
Evening class session (required): 7-10pm Tues OR Thurs (both options will be available). In practice, we will only use a ~2 hour portion of this, 3-4x during the term, but you need to hold this time window on a weekly basis because which nights we use will depend on weather and therefore will not be known in advance.
Field trip (required): To Palomar Observatory, will take place either May 3-5 or May 10-12. Students will only need to attend one weekend, but should keep both weekends open until students are assigned observing slots. We will depart for the field trip Friday around noon and return Sunday around 6pm.
Catalog Description: This hands-on, project-based course covers the design, proposal, and execution of astronomical observations, the basics of data reduction and analysis, and interacting with astronomical survey catalogs. The scope of the course includes imaging and spectroscopic observational techniques at optical and infrared wavelengths. The format centers on projects and practical skills but also includes a lecture and problem set component to establish the theoretical underpinnings of the practical work. Specific course components include: (a) Students will learn to use small, portable telescopes and find and image objects of interest using finder charts; (b) Students will build basic data reduction pipelines for imaging and spectroscopy data to understand how these types of data are used to derive scientific results; (c) Students will use Palomar Observatory to propose and execute their own research projects focused on astrophysical or planetary topics; (d) Students will query and work with data from on-line archives and catalogs. The class meets twice a week during the daytime plus one weekly evening telescope session, and has a required field trip to Palomar Observatory. Students interested in enrolling should review the logistical information on this page and ensure their schedule allows attendance of all course components prior to registering.
This course is currently being offered annually in the spring term. The aim is to provide students with direct experience with all aspects of observational astronomy research, and intuition working with astronomical tools. The course is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students who wish to gain hands-on experience with astronomical tools from amateur to professional telescopes and survey datasets. At the end of the course, students will have a broad set of skills relevant to research in astronomy, and will have preparation to propose and carry out Palomar observations in particular.
A tentative schedule is below. It may change significantly, and is provided primarily to inform decisions about enrollment:
Week 1 – first day of class: Intro & Observational planning
- Introduction to the course & Palomar projects.
- Lecture: considerations in observation planning
- Homework: Observation-planning problem set.
Week 2: Observation planning
- Observation planning + proposal writing
- Homework: Write Palomar proposals
Week 3: Telescope basics
- Palomar proposals due; students give presentations to class on their proposals;
- Lecture: telescope optical designs; astronomical coordinate systems
- Homework: coordinate systems
Week 4: Imaging
- Lecture/hands-on module: imaging processing, photometric calibration; aperture photometry
Week 5: Spectroscopy
- Lecture/hands-on module: spectroscopy, line broadening, spectral extraction & calibrations
- Work on Palomar data reduction
Week 6: Uncertainties
- Lecture/hands-on module: basic statistics, calculating uncertainties
- Continue working on Palomar data reduction
Week 7: Survey data
- Lecture/hands-on module: survey data
- Homework: survey project
Week 9: Palomar project presentations
- Students present the results of Palomar projects
Finals week: Palomar project write-ups due