Ay 122a Webpage - Fall 2012
*** OLD VERSION WHILE TRYING TO RECOVER A MORE RECENT PAGE ***

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

Instructors:

• C. Steidel, ccs@astro, x-4168, 388 Cahill
• G. Djorgovski, george@astro, x-4415, 208 Cahill
• Office hours: by arrangement

TA:

• M. Balokovic, mislavb@astro, x-6395, 264 Cahill
• Office hours: Thu. 2-3 pm

Times and location: Wed & Fri, 2:30 - 4:00, in 219 Cahill

Class details, grading, collaboration policy, etc.
Schedule of lectures (subject to changes)

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Homeworks, solutions, assignments:

• Assignment #1, Oct. 5, 2012 (not graded; simply good for you): Check out every link in the second lecture set, to see what they offer. From the archives and VO portals, download at least one item from each. This will help you remember when you actually need some of this stuff.
• Problem Set #1 , posted on Oct. 20, due by 5 pm on Oct. 26
• Problem Set #2 , posted on Nov.9, due by 5 pm on Nov. 16. The data package needed can be found here
• Term papers instructions , posted on Nov. 20, written papers due by 5 pm on Dec. 7, oral presentations on Dec. 11 and 12.

• The Final:

  It is a 3h test, and due by 5 pm on Dec. 14. It can be downloaded here, but please do not do this until you are ready to start.

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Lecture slides, notes, and related links, but feel free to google on your own:

• Introductory lecture: General considerations,coordinates, units, magnitudes (3.5 MB pdf file)
  • "The growth of astrophysical understanding", by M. Harwit , Physics Today, Nov. 2003, p. 38; here is a local pdf version
  • George's notes on observable parameter spaces (pdf)
  • Wikipedia article on night sky brightness
  • Wikipedia article on astronomical coordinate systems
  • GSFC coordinates converter
  • R. Pogge's note on time systems
  • Time systems from USNO * So what time is it?
  • B. Casey's astronomical calendar tools

• On-line resources, archives, tools, VO, etc. (4.6 MB pdf file)
  • Some popular data archives (note: many are multi-mission archives): SDSS DR9 * MAST * IRSA * HEASARC * Chandra * CADC * USNO * FIRST * NVSS * LAMBDA * ESO * KOA
  • Derived data and literature: NED * CDS/SIMBAD * NSSDC * ADS * arXiv
  • VO portals: US VAO * EuroVO * IVOA
  • Methods of computational science class (slides, links, resources): Ay 119 * Ay 199
  • Data mining links:
    • DM links from Ay 119
    • IVOA KDD guide
    • "A Few Useful Things to Know About Machine Learning", by P. Domingos (pdf)
    • Andrew Moore's statistics and data mining tutorials
    • Weka data mining package and links
    • Data Mining and Exploration (DAME)
    • The Data Mine (links)
    • KDNuggets links
    • Center for Astrostatistics @ PSU (codes, literature, etc.)
  • Statistics links:
    • VOStat service at PSU
    • A different VOStat service at VO-India
    • The Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) (R is a statistical analysis language / package, very powerful) # Tom Loredo's BIPS (Bayesian Inference for the Physical Sciences) - lots of good links and resources
    • Tom Loredo's BIPS (Bayesian Inference for the Physical Sciences) - lots of good links and resources
    • E.T. Jaynes's book "Probability Theory: The Logic of Scicence" * Here is a local copy (pdf)
    • David MacKay's book "Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms"

• Chuck's lecture notes on fluxes, magnitudes, transparency, etc. (9.2 MB pdf file)

• Chuck's lecture notes on telescopes and optics (6.3 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.

• Chuck's lecture notes on telescopes, sites, and seeing (5.7 MB pdf file)
  • AO links from CfAO
  • Claire Max's AO class from UCSC
  • 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
  • NOAO site testing links

• Chuck's lecture notes on space telescopes and detector noise variance (5.7 MB pdf file)

• Chuck's lecture notes on spectrographs and spectroscopy (7.2 MB pdf file)

• Chuck's lecture notes on volume phase holographic gratings (1.8 MB pdf file)

• Chuck's lecture notes on MOSFIRE spectrograph (1.0 MB pdf file)

• Photometric systems, calibration, S/N considerations (3.5 MB pdf file)
  • J. Wall: "Practical Statistics for Astronomers - I. Definitions, the Normal Distribution, Detection of Signal", QJRAS, 20, 138 (1979) (pdf)
  • J. Wall: "Practical Statistics for Astronomers - II. Correlation, Data Modeling, and Sample Comparison", QJRAS, 37, 519 (1996) (pdf)
  • 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]
    • IPAC extinction links
  • Asiago database of photometric systems
  • Geneva listing of photometric systems
  • Some IRAF documentation
  • Starlink photo calibrations cookbook
  • HST Exposure Time Calculators

• Photometry in practice (2.4 MB pdf file)
  • The original Stetson (1987, PASP, 99, 191) Daophot paper [pdf]
  • Stetson (1990, PASP, 102, 932) paper on curves of growth [pdf]
  • Bertin & Arnouts (1996, A&AS, 117,393) paper on SExtractor [pdf]
  • ASPCS vol. 23, "Astronomical CCD observing and reduction techniques", ed. S. Howell (1992) [ADS link]

• Detectors: UV/visible (3.7 MB pdf file)
• Detectors: IR and energy resolving (6.5 MB pdf file)
  • 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
  • G. Rieke: "IR Detector Arrays for Astronomy", ARAA, 45, 77 (2007) (pdf file)
  • R. Smith's notes on IR detectors for Ay 105 (pdf file)
  • B. Mazin: "Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors: The First Decade", AIP Conf. Ptoc., 1185, 135 (2009) (pdf)
  • Notes on TES and STJ detectors from LLNL

• Astrometry (1.8 MB pdf file)
  • Yale Astrometry Workshop 2005 (download presentations)
  • Michelson Summer Workshops 2005 * 2006
  • Hipparcos * GAIA
  • International Celestial Reference System (ICRS) * World Coordinate System (WCS)
  • USNO Data Server
  • Star catalogs from USNO
  • Astrometry.net

• Spectrographs and Spectroscopy (6.4 MB pdf file). See also Chuck's notes linked above.
  • Bob O'Connell's spectroscopy links and class notes (PDF)
  • D. Carter's notes on spectroscopy from LJMU

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Some other useful links:

• Useful tools from GSFC
• 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
• Atomic line wavelengths

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Last changed: 7 Dec 12, SGD