Astronomy 633: Astrophysical Techniques

Positional astronomy: coordinate systems, spherical geometry, precession, time
Statistics: sample and parent population, mean and variance, binomial, Poisson and Gaussian distributions, regression, correlation, chi-squared, non-parametric statistics
Optics: geometric optics, telescope design, aberrations, physical optics
Atmosphere: refraction, seeing, adaptive optics, observatory sites, atmospheric extinction and emission
Detectors: semiconductors, dark current, Johnson noise, photodiodes, bolometers, CCDs, infrared arrays
Data processing: introduction to IDL
Photometry: photometric and radiometric concepts, magnitudes, photometric systems, absolute calibration, signal to noise, practical considerations
Spectroscopy: typical slit spectrometer, prisms, gratings, practical considerations
Radio astronomy: single aperture radio telescopes, brightness and antenna temperatures, interferometry, aperture synthesis,
Space astronomy: why do it, technical considerations, residual atmosphere, attitude control & determination
X-ray astronomy: interaction of X-rays with matter, X-ray optics, X-ray detectors
Neutrino astronomy
Gravitational wave astronomy

This outline is representative only, and is likely to change from instructor to instructor and from year to year.