George's Ay 122 Webpage - Fall 2006

http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~george/ay122/

Instructors:

• Tony Readhead, acr 'at' astro, 395-4972, 111 Robinson
• George Djorgovski, george 'at' astro, 395-4415, 221 Robinson

Office hours: by arrangement

TAs: Mansi Kasliwal, mansi 'at' astro, 395-6222, 052B Robinson
Office hours: by arrangement
Fabio Altenbach, fabio 'at' astro, 395-4026, 03 Robinson
Office hours: by arrangement
Here is his website for this class, where the homeworks and exams will be posted.

Times and location: Tue & Thu, 2:30 - 4:00, 106 Robinson, unless otherwise noted

Class summary, syllabus, grading, collaboration policy, etc. (subject to changes and updates!)

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The Final:

• Introductory lecture: the nature of astronomical inquiry, coordinate and time systems, astrometry (9.5 MB pdf file)
  • "The growth of astrophysical understanding", by M. Harwit , Physics Today, Nov. 2003, p. 38; here is a local PDF version
  • Yale Astrometry Workshop 2005
  • Michelson Summer Workshop 2005 * 2006
  • Hipparcos * GAIA * SIM
  • International Celestial Reference System (ICRS) * World Coordinate System (WCS)
  • USNO Data Server
  • Star catalogs from USNO
  • R. Pogge's note on time systems
  • Time systems from USNO

• Basic optics and telescopes (17.4 MB pdf file)
  • "Geometrical Optics" , a short primer by D. Suson (PDF)
  • "Optics", by B. Crowell , a short textbook (PDF)
  • Articles on telescopes from the Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics (PDF): Reflectors * Refractors * IR * History * Future
  • James Graham's excellent Berkeley class on large telescopes, etc.

• UV/Opt/IR detectors (9.1 MB pdf file)
  • CCD links at ING
  • CCD resources links at CTIO
  • CCD university from Apogee Instruments
  • Bob O'Connell's class notes on CCDs
  • M. Beckett's notes on IR arrays
  • A tutorial on bolometers from SCUBA folks
  • Notes on TES and STJ detectors from LLNL
  • Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics

• Photometry (4.2 MB pdf file)
  • Magnitudes and photometric systems
  • Photometric bandpass zeropoints:
    • "Standard Photometric Systems" by M. Bessel, 2005, ARAA, 43, 293 [pdf]
    • Fukugita et al. 1995, PASP, 107, 945 * [jpg] * [pdf]
    • Zombeck 1990, Handbook of Space Astronomy and Astrophysics * [jpg] * [pdf]
    • IR bands: Tokunaga 2000, Astrophysical Quantities * [jpg] * [pdf]
  • Interstellar extinction in photometric bands:
    • Rieke & Lebofsky 1985, ApJ, 288, 618 * [jpg] * [pdf]
  • Asiago database of photometric systems
  • Geneva listing of photometric systems
  • Some IRAF documentation * Another one
  • Starlink photo calibrations cookbook

• Atm. turbulence, AO, site testing (14 MB pdf file)
  • AO links from CfAO
  • A. Tokovinin's AO tutorial from CTIO
  • O. Lai's AO slides from CFHT
  • Here is a cool (2.7 MB) animated gif demonstrating the effect of AO, from MPIA-HD ALFA group
  • George's site testing links
  • NOAO site testing links

• Spectrographs and Spectroscopy (11.3 MB pdf file)
  • Bob O'Connell's spectroscopy links and class notes (PDF)
  • D. Carter's notes on spectroscopy from LJMU

• X-ray, gamma-ray, and UHECR telescopes and instruments (27.4 MB pdf file)
  • X-ray astronomy tutorial from GSFC
  • HEASARC at NASA GSFC
  • Chandra Science Center at CfA
  • J. Manners's notes on X-ray imaging
  • Articles from the Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophyiscs (PDF): X-ray telescopes * Gamma-ray telescopes
  • Niel Brandt's High-Energy Astronomy course at PSU

• Surveys, Virtual Observatory, Archives, Web resources, Statistics for data exploration (13.6 MB pdf file)
  • George's Virtual Observatory links
  • U.S. National Virtual Observatory . Do explore the tools available, and check out the proceedings of the past summer schools - lots of useful lectures to download
  • George's archives and e-pubs links
  • George's astrostatistics and data mining links
  • StatPages.net (lots of excellent links)
  • Center for Astrostatistics @ PSU
  • StatCodes @ PSU
  • Statistics bibliography @ PSU
  • StatLib @ CMU
  • VOStat - Try it!
  • E.T. Jaynes's book "Probability Theory: The Logic of Scicence" * Here is a local copy (pdf)
  • Prasenjit Saha's book on data analysis
  • More Bayesian links

• Bonus lecture: Observing skills (Vis/NIR) (1.1 MB pdf file)
  • George's observing utilities links

Some other useful links:

• D. Carter's Phys 362 Class at LJMU
• Mike Bolte's Ay 256 Lectures at UCSC
• Bob O'Connell's Ay 511 Class at U.Va.
• M. Richmond's Phys 445 Class at RIT
• Astronomy resources on the internet
• The Physics Hypertextbook
• M. Zombeck's "Handbook of Space Astronomy and Astrophysics", scanned at ADS
• A useful list of relevant books and articles
• NED Level 5 (see especially "Tools and Statistics")
• Physical and astronomical constants * Physical constants * Another one (SWRI)
• Atomic line wavelengths

Last changed: 19 Dec 06, SGD