Welcome to the Fall 2010 edition of Astronomy 475: Experimental Methods of Astrophysics taught by Froney Crawford. In this course we will cover various experimental and observational aspects of astronomy and will conduct labs and projects.

After a brief introduction to astronomical coordinates, the first third of the course will cover optical astronomy, with an emphasis on optical telescopes, optical observing techniques, and optical instrumentation (including CCDs) in support of observing projects that we will conduct throughout the semester. We will then cover image processing, general signal processing, and filtering basics before moving into a discussion of radio astronomy in the middle third of the course. We will cover radio astronomy basics, instrumentation, telescopes, and observing techniques. We will also discuss non-thermal radio emission processes and radio science. The last part of the course will cover X-ray astronomy (including X-ray detectors) and possibly gravitational wave astronomy as well, and during the last week of class, there will be student presentations on independent projects.

For the independent projects, each person will select and follow up on a facet of observational astronomy not already covered in the course. Aside from a ~30 min. presentation given to the class on your topic, you will also submit a paper (with references) at the end of the course. I'll have more to say about these independent projects later in the semester. We will also have (almost) weekly problem sets which will be graded, and I plan to give a midterm and final exam.

The plan is to have a variety of labs which will be closely tied to the lecture part of the course. I hope that the topics covered in the class discussions in the first part of the course will support the lab activities throughout the semester. I will have more to say to you about labs once the course starts.

Since physics plays a major role in the discussion and understanding of the topics in this course, I will make free use of physical concepts that you should have seen and become familiar with by the time you are a senior (for instance, physical optics and diffraction, to give just an example). You must be familiar with this level of physics to keep up in the course.

We will meet on the fourth floor of Hackman on Tue and Thu from 1:30 - 2:50 p.m., and also on Thu nights from 7:20 - 9:20 p.m.. Attendance required (of course!).

Instructor contact information:
• Lectures: Froney Crawford
  
• Office: Hackman 421
  
• Phone: (717) 358-4499
  
• Email: fcrawfor@fandm.edu
  
• Office Hours: Tue 3:00-4:00 p.m., Wed 2:00-4:00 p.m., Thu 3:00-4:30 p.m.
  

Come see me anytime.

Grading

For the purposes of grading, a rough breakdown is as follows:
• Midterm Exam (20%)
  
• Final Exam (20%)
  
• Labs (25%)
  
• Homework (25%)
  
• Independent Project (10%)

I reserve the right to adjust your grade to some extent at the end of the semester to reflect effort, conscientiousness, participation, etc.

There are several books which will be useful for the optical astronomy portion of the course. These are:
• Observing the Universe: A Guide to Observational Astronomy and Planetary Science by Andrew J. Norton (Editor)
• Observational Astronomy (2nd edition) by D. Scott Birney, Guillermo Gonzalez, & David Oesper
• Handbook of CCD Astronomy (2nd edition) by Steve B. Howell
• Bill Romanishin's online book "An Introduction to Astronomical Photometry Using CCDs" (in pdf format). Make sure you get the latest version (dated 22Oct06).

Each of these books takes a slightly different approach and has a different emphasis and coverage, but taken together they provide the necessary background for our discussion.

For the radio astronomy portion of the course, we will be using:

• Tools of Radio Astronomy (4th revision) by K. Rohlfs and T. L. Wilson.

This book has extensive (and readable) coverage of the field and is a good resource to have handy even after the course is over.

For the last part of the course covering X-rays and gravitational waves (and for your independent projects), you will need to pay close attention to the class notes and perhaps do some digging around on your own in some of the books in the library.