Prof Patrick Roche

Synopsis:

• Introduction to astronomical facilities
• Coordinates, catalogues, time, observability
• Earth’s Atmosphere and advantages of Space
• Atmospheric Transmission and Emission
• Refraction and Seeing
• High Resolution imaging : Corrections for atmospheric phase
• Adaptive Optics & Interferometry
• Telescopes
• Detectors
• Photometry
• Spectroscopy
• Observing Proposals

Essential sites:

• Simbad :                      http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/
• NED : Nasa Extragalactic Database  http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu
• NASA Space Data Center      http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/astro/
• Canadian Astronomy Data centre   http://www.cadc-ccda.hia-iha.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/en/
• IRSA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive    http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/frontpage/
• NRAO VLA Sky Survey     http://www.cv.nrao.edu/nvss/

Reference Books

• Arthur Cox  Allenճ Astrophysical Quantities
• George Rieke Measuring the Universe: a multiwavelength perspective
• Ian McLean,  Electronic Imaging in Astronomy: Detectors and Instrumentation, Second Edition, 2008
• C.K. Walker, Terahertz Astronomy
• Jonathan M. Marr, Ronald L. Snell, Stanley E. Kurtz   Fundamentals of Radio Astronomy: Observational Methods
• Bevington, P. R., and Robinson, D. K. 2002, Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences

Review Articles

• M Bessell, Standard Photometric Systems, ARAA, 43, 293, 2005
• G Rieke, Infrared Detector Arrays for Astronomy, ARAA, 45, 2007
• R Davies & M Kaspar, Adaptive Optics for Astronomy, ARAA, 50, 305, 2012
• Taylor, G B, Carilli, C. L, Perley, R. A. (eds) Synthesis Imaging in Radio Astronomy II, ASP Vol. 180 (1998)

Technical Documents

• Basic Image Processing and CCD features : https://www.eso.org/~ohainaut/ccd/
• Starlink CCD Data Reduction Cookbook :   http://www.starlink.ac.uk/docs/sc5.htx/sc5.html
• ALMA Technical Handbook : https://almascience.eso.org/documents-and-tools/latest/documents-and-tools/cycle8/alma-technical-handbook
• Gemini Data Reduction Workshop Presentations  https://www.noao.edu/meetings/gdw/
• Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit  http://casu.ast.cam.ac.uk/surveys-projects/vst/technical

Lecture 1    Facilities and Coordinates

Lecture 2    Earth’s atmosphere  :  emission, transmission

Lecture 3    Earth’s atmosphere  : refraction and seeing

Lecture 4    Achieving High Resolution  ;  Adaptive Optics and Interferometry

Lecture 5    Telescopes

Lecture 5a  JWST

Lecture 6    Detectors

Lecture 7    Imaging & Photometry

Lecture 8    Spectroscopy

Lecture 9    Proposals