- Docente: Paola Focardi
- Credits: 6
- SSD: FIS/05
- Language: Italian
- Moduli: Paola Focardi (Modulo 1) Margherita Talia (Modulo 2)
- Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures (Modulo 1) Traditional lectures (Modulo 2)
- Campus: Bologna
- Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Astronomy (cod. 8004)
Learning outcomes
The course will provide students with the capability to reduce some astronomical data with IRAF which is the mostly used package by professional astronomers all over the world. Not only that, at the end of the course students are expected to be acquainted enough with the dealt subjects to be able to address the fundamental characteristics of an instrumental set up that they should choose to acquire the astronomical quantity they could be interested and also to provide an estimate of the error associated to the measure.
Course contents
The basics of photometry: apparent and absolute magnitude, photometrical systems and color indices.
The measure of the magnitude and the related error.
The CCD detector. Standard reduction of CCD images. Aperture photometry when to use it and how. Atmospheric absorption, air mass definition, computing extinction coefficient with the method developed by Bouger. The two coefficient of extinction in the B band.
Photometric calibration of magnitudes (i.e. how to obtain standard system magnitudes from instrumental ones) and related error.
The basics of spectroscopy instrumental set up and of the optical "dispersing" elements (prism and grating). Single spectra, multislit and multifiber spectra. Slitless spectra. How to extract 1d spectra from 2d images. Spectral wavelength calibration and flux calibration. The effect of differential athmospheric absorption on spectra.
Readings/Bibliography
Unfortunately a book covering all the subjects which are part of this course does not exist, For this reason, students will be provided with all the slides (pdf files) which will be shown in the lectures and with scientific papers in which they will be able to find some more information.
Teaching methods
The course has an essential part of "theory" and is mostly "built" on several practical examples. The latter ones are proposed to students as an exemplification of the "theoretical concepts" and solved with them. Large part of the course is devoted to the understanding of IRAF philosophy and learning of some tasks that will be used by students to address practical problems related to data reduction and analysis.
Assessment methods
Oral test lasting between 40 and 60 minutes.The student may choose between a standard test (3 or 4 questions posed by the teacher) or a test in which he/she will expose a subject that he/she has chosen and that may even have not been included among the ones dealt in this course (but must obviously be related to them). If this is the case half of the test will be on the chosen subject and the remaining half (one or two questions) will be devoted to verify his/her knowledge and understanding of the subjects addressed in the course.
Teaching tools
Video projector and PC.
Office hours
See the website of Paola Focardi
See the website of Margherita Talia