View source for Observational Astronomy (308)

These notes are brief summaries and links for  the in-class content for the Monday class meetings of the Fall Semester 2019.


== Week 1 (August 19) ==

* [http://prancer.physics.louisville.edu/classes/syllabus/p308_fa19.pdf Orientation to the class]
* Purpose, activities, outcomes
* [https://www.astro.louisville.edu/moore/directions/ Visiting the observatory]
* Remote observing
* Semester projects
* [https://www.astro.louisville.edu/presentations/ul_20190221.pdf Facilities and research] 
* On-line with Mt. Kent live session

== Week 2 (August 26) ==

* What we observe
** Position and celestial coordinates
** Flux and magnitude
* What we infer
** Distance
** Size
** Luminosity
** Composition
** Evolution
* Useful tools for access to data
** [https://stellarium.org/ Stellarium]
** [http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/ Simbad]
** [http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/aladin.gml Aladin]



== Week 3 (September 2) ==

* Labor Day holiday


== Week 4 (September 9) ==

* Telescopes
** Basic concepts of optical telescope design
** Light gathering function
** Focal plane scale
** Angular resolution and point spread function
** Detectors and filters

* Visit to the Planetarium
** Solar projection telescope
** Solar imaging in hydrogen alpha light


== Week 5 (September 16) ==

* Telescopes continued from last week as needed

* Examples: Epsilon Lyrae (Double Double) see [https://www.astro.louisville.edu/shared_skies/archive/select/stars/lyra/epsilon_lyrae/20060909/ https://www.astro.louisville.edu/shared_skies/archive/select/stars/lyra/epsilon_lyrae/20060909/]


== Week 6 (September 23) ==

* Clear weather tonight possible (Monday) and the coming weekend

* Roundtable discussion about project ideas (bring your own) such as
** Jupiter imaging (must be done soon)
** Bright star photometry (examples are some TESS candidates and zeta Andromedae now)
** Use of latest CMOS color sensors for photometry 
** Other TESS candidates (TESS is currently observing the northern sky)
** Variable stars in the TESS public data
** Comets [http://www.aerith.net/comet/weekly/current.html http://www.aerith.net/comet/weekly/current.html]
** Supernovae [http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/supernova.html http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/supernova.html]
** Anything in Orion (visible after midnight now) 
** Geosynchronous (GEO) satellites (where, when, optical variability)
** Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites (wide field camera, untracked)
** Near-Earth objects 
** Mercury transit on November 11 (with an exoplanet transit at night backup)
** Other selected targets in either hemisphere, your choice

To continue this week and next as time allows

* [https://www.astro.louisville.edu/software/astroimagej/index.html AstroImageJ]
** Installation
** Use with simple images  
** Photometry
** Advanced concepts
** Examples: Jupiter see [https://www.astro.louisville.edu/shared_skies/archive/select/planets/jupiter/20140313/ https://www.astro.louisville.edu/shared_skies/archive/select/planets/jupiter/20140313/]
** Examples: TESS data and followup with ground-based observations


== Week 7 (September 30) ==

* Continued discussion of research and optical astronomy data


== Week 8 (October  7) ==

* Fall break



== Week 9 (October 14) ==

* Final organization of research topics (revised 2019-10-21)
** Natalie Warning - Geosynchronous satellites
** Shawn Knabel, Dominic Smith, Travis Waters - TESS exoplanets
** Michael Turner - TESS and expolanets
** Christopher Anderson - Orion star formation
** Benjamin Kantardzic- TESS and exoplanets
** Dylan Scharff - Supernovae


* Exoplanet transit photometry of a TESS candidate
** Full frame images
** Candidates
** Validation - night of October 13, 2019


== Week 10 (October 21) ==

* Research by topic
** TESS and exoplanets
*** Travis Waters, Shawn Knabel, Dominic Smith, Michael Turner, Ben Kantardzic
** Supernovae
*** Dylan Scharff
** Orion star formation
*** Chris Andersen
** Geosynchronous satellites
*** Natalie Warning

* This week at Moore Observatory
** Tuesday night likely clear
** Wednesday night long range partly cloudy
** Sunday night long range favorable

* Noise in signals
** Gaussian random processes, photons, and Poisson noise
** Assessing sources of systematic error and noise in photometry



== Week 11 (October 28) ==

* Stellar spectra
* Radial velocities


== Week 12 (November 4) ==

* Latest data on GEO satellites and TESS targets
* Determining planetary mass from spectra

== Week 13 (November 11) ==

* High spatial resolution imaging
** Lucky imaging
** Adaptive optics
** Role in exoplanet discovery
** Interferometry present and future