Physics 629: Observational Techniques
Fall 2010

Instructor Andrew Baker Serin 309 Phone: 732-445-5500 x2544 Email: ajbaker[at]physics.rutgers.edu Office hours: Thursday 1:30-3:00 (or by appointment) Venue TF3 (12:00-1:20) in SEC211, except where boldfaced below

Textbooks
Kitchin, Astrophysical Techniques (Fifth Edition)
Wall & Jenkins, Practical Statistics for Astronomers
I will also draw material as needed from Bracewell, The Fourier Transform and its Applications, from Rieke, Detection of Light, from Rohlfs & Wilson, Tools of Radio Astronomy, and from Thompson, Moran, & Swenson, Interferometry and Synthesis in Radio Astronomy, all of which are on reserve in the physics library.

Overview
Here's the official course catalog listing:
"Introduction to tools and techniques of modern observational astronomy. Survey of instruments and capabilities at current telescope sites around the world and in space. Data reduction methods. Practical experience with Serin Observatory."

I plan to teach this course so that by the end of it you will be able to (1) understand how modern telescopes and instruments acquire data at all wavelengths, (2) understand how modern software packages are used to acquire, reduce, and catalog data, and (3) estimate signal/noise ratios before you obtain a given dataset, and statistically appropriate uncertainties for the quantities you measure from it. I will also spend a little time discussing the sociology of astronomical observing, i.e., how one successfully competes for time on large telescopes.

Schedule
Both the sequence of lectures and the assignment due dates are preliminary at this point; I will update them as needed during the course of the semester. The last two lectures are tentatively reserved for topics to be chosen shortly before Thanksgiving by the students who are officially enrolled in the course. These will give you an opportunity to make me sweat, thus exacting revenge for a semester's worth of homework assignments.

LECTURE	DATE	TOPIC	TEXT	DUE
1	Sep 3	observing proposal strategy; introduction to GALEX	---
2	Sep 7	Bayes's theorem; binomial and Poisson distributions	WJ ch 1 & 2
3	Sep 10	normal distribution; central limit theorem; confidence intervals	WJ ch 2 & 6	HW1
4	Sep 17	statistics; error propagation	WJ ch 3	HW2
5	Sep 21	testing for correlation; Monte Carlo simulations	WJ ch 4 & 6
6	Sep 24	parametric and non-parametric hypothesis testing	WJ ch 5	HW3
7	Sep 28	least squares fitting; Fourier transforms	WJ ch 8
8	Sep 29	convolution and correlation; sampling theorem; FFTs	WJ ch 8
9	Oct 1	atmospheric transmission and refraction	---	HW4
10	Oct 5	atmospheric seeing; zodiacal and Galactic foregrounds	---
11	Oct 6	extragalactic backgrounds; confusion	---
12	Oct 8	radio telescopes	K ch 1	HW5
	Oct 15			mid-term observing proposal
13	Oct 19	coherent and incoherent detection	K ch 1
14	Oct 20	aperture synthesis: basics	K ch 2
15	Oct 22	aperture synthesis: details and advanced techniques	---	TAC reports
16	Oct 29	detectors	K ch 1	HW6
17	Nov 2	geometric optics	---
18	Nov 3	optical telescopes	K ch 1
19	Nov 5	dispersive elements	K ch 4	HW7
20	Nov 12	optical/IR spectrograph design	K ch 4	HW8
21	Nov 16	diffraction-limited imaging (1)	K ch 2
22	Nov 19	diffraction-limited imaging (2)	---	HW9
23	Nov 23	optical interferometry	K ch 2
24	Nov 30	optical and radio polarimetry	K ch 5
25	Dec 3	absolute calibration	K ch 3	HW10
26	Dec 7	software	---
27	Dec 8	student choice	---
28	Dec 10	student choice	---	HW11
	Dec 20			final exam due (noon)

Grading
Your course grade will be based on a weighted combination of three elements:

• homework assignments, including a set of TAC comments (40%)
• mid-term observing proposal (30%)
• final exam (30%)

Your mid-term project will be to write a proposal for new observations with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). You may identify a subject for the proposal in consultation with a Rutgers faculty member or another collaborator, but the text you submit for credit must represent your work only. (Since the official HST deadline will be in February 2011, you are welcome to treat what you turn in to me as merely the first draft of what you submit for real after getting feedback from others.)

The final exam will be open-book, open-note, and closed-homework.

Other items

• Absences
  I will have to miss at least five (dates in parentheses above) of our regularly scheduled classes. These will either be taught by guest lecturers, or rescheduled at mutually convenient times. If you need to miss a class for some reason, there will be no penalty to your grade; however, since I will not be posting my notes to the course website, you will generally need to rely on your classmates' notes to catch up.
• Late assignments
  I am willing to be somewhat flexible, but for problem sets that are turned in more than one lecture later than their nominal due dates I will generally start docking points. For the mid-term observing proposal, the policy will be the same as the GALEX project's: the version I have at the deadline will be the version that gets graded.
• Collaboration policy
  On the homework assignments, you should first try every exercise yourself without discussing it with others. If you get stuck (or finish and would like to compare answers), you may discuss exercises with other students in the course and/or me, but you should always write up your own solutions. You may consult books and published papers, but not old solution sets from previous offerings of this course or similar courses elsewhere.
• Auditors
  Students not enrolled for credit are welcome to attend the lectures. However, if you take the course for credit, you will (a) learn more, and (b) get to help select the subjects of the "student choice" lectures at the end of the semester.
• Students with disabilities
  If you have a disability, let me know early in the semester so that we can make the necessary arrangements for you to have a successful learning experience. Please consult this web page for more details.