Observational Astronomy
- Brian Hill home page
Syllabus
Daily Schedule
- A detailed daily schedule was kept retrospectively
Meeting Schedule
- Tuesdays we meet at the regular class time (11:00-12:25)
- Evening meeting times (block off both, we will only use one each week): Wednesday or Saturday, 8:00-11:00pm (data-taking observing sessions will go later, but attendance for the full session is not expected)
Grading
The course was graded 60% on assignments, 10% on class participation, and 30% on active participation during the lengthy observing sessions. Late assignments (up to 72 hours) received half credit.
References
I will assemble the materials. No textbook is required. This page lists the references I will be drawing from.
Goals
- We will start with the celestial coordinate system and the magnitude system
- In our night labs, we will start with manual operation of a German Equatorial telescope
- In subsequent labs, we will learn computer operation of the telescope
- We will do some astrophotography before transitioning to scientific work
- We will obtain our own data for eclipsing binary and exoplanet targets
- We will learn how to process the data into light curves
Our NGC 4565 Image
Zayd’s W UMa Light Curve
