Students will be given experience using telescopes and workstation computers for the acquisition, reduction, and analysis of astronomical data through laboratory exercises. At the end of the course, the student will be expected to grasp the fundamentals of positional astronomy as it relates to basic observational practice, understand and be able to apply sensibly basic statistical techniques for the quantitative analysis of data, and will have been introduced and given basic experience in the techniques they will encounter in optical and infrared astronomical research. This will provide the student with sufficient grounding in basic astronomical observing and data analysis techniques to be able to effectively participate in supervised research experiences with OSU astronomy faculty, for example, preparatory to a senior honors thesis in astronomy. Homework Homework will be assigned each week on Thursday and due in-class the following Thursday. All write-ups of lab work will be due at the end of the quarter.
Attendance is mandatory at all lab sessions.
The first lab session is the first day of courses on Sept 20. For the computer portions of the labs, students will be assigned temporary accounts on Astronomy Department lab workstations for the duration of the course. These are Linux workstations to be used for many of the image processing and analysis labs. Information on use of computers and local computer use policies will be handed out separately during the first Lab session. These computers are being located in the Astronomy Undergraduate Room in 4042 McPherson Lab, and may be used any time for course work, not just during the Wednesday-night labs.