MPAGS - Astrophysical Techniques (2020-2021 version)
MPAGS is the Midlands Physics Alliance Graduate School, a joint school which for astronomy purposes comprises Birmingham, Keele, Leicester, Nottingham and Warwick. Below are materials connected to the Warwick MPAGS module "Astrophysical techniques", which is running for 5 weeks starting in February 2021, with 2 hourly sessions (see below) and associated assignments.
Sessions will run online, on MS Teams:
Wednesday sessions (Wed 3rd Feb, 17th Feb, 24th Feb, 3rd March): Microsoft Teams meeting
Thursday 11th Feb: Microsoft Teams meeting
Students should also attempt to join the Team associated with this course by clicking here. The meeting links should be accessible to those outside of Warwick as well as those inside. External students will need to be added to the team manually as guests (please email e.r.stanway@warwick.ac.uk with your preferred email/live account detail). Any connection problems should be reported to e.r.stanway@warwick.ac.uk who will endeavour to find a solution. Session recordings will be made on a best-effort basis - lecturers are not obliged to replace failed or faulty recordings.
Students should also attempt to join the Team associated with this course by clicking here. The meeting links should be accessible to those outside of Warwick as well as those inside. External students will need to be added to the team manually as guests (please email e.r.stanway@warwick.ac.uk with your preferred email/live account detail). Any connection problems should be reported to e.r.stanway@warwick.ac.uk who will endeavour to find a solution. Session recordings will be made on a best-effort basis - lecturers are not obliged to replace failed or faulty recordings.
Timetable (note that the second session is offset by 1 day):
| Week | Date | Time | Session leader | Topic |
| 4 | Wednesday 3rd Feb | 10am-12 | Elizabeth Stanway | Observational Astronomy |
| 5 | Thursday 11th Feb | 10am-12 | Matteo Brogi / Dan Bayliss | Optical/IR Astronomy - photometry & spectroscopy |
| 6 | Wednesday 17th Feb | 10am-12 | Peter Wheatley | X-ray Astronomy |
| 7 | Wednesday 24th Feb | 10am-12 | Grant Kennedy | Interferometry |
| 8 | Wednesday 3rd Mar | 10am-12 | Joseph Lyman | Data Mining (MP4) |
Home work assignments (May be updated up to day of the session):
- Assignment 1: questions related to lecture on observing. Deadline: Wed 10th Feb, end of. Related materials: seminar material, Astronomical seeing, stellarium
- Assignment 2: questions related to lecture on CCDs, photometry, and spectroscopy. Note: lecture slides are in the linked directory given in the assignment sheet. Deadline: Wed 17th Feb. Please submit via an email to Matteo Brogi and Daniel Bayliss.
- Assignment 3: questions related to lecture on X-ray astronomy. Deadline: Wed 24th Feb, end of. Related materials: Lecture notes
- Assignment 4: questions related to lecture on interferometry. Related materials: slides, iPython notebook. Deadline: Wed 3rd March, end of.
- Assignment 5: data mining exercise. Related materials: slides, github repo (follow link in readme to run notebook) Deadline: Wed 10th March, end of.