Program and General information
29 setembro 2009, 09:08 • Ana Maria Cidade Mourão
Program
A.Astronomy:
Introduction to Stellar Photometry by Doctor Vallery Stanishev (CENTRA)
B. Black Holes
Black hole binaries by Doctor Vitor Cardoso (CENTRA)
C. Cosmology
Probing Cosmology with the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiationby Doctor Mário Santos (CENTRA)
Schedule for the classes
- 3af 9h00m-11h00m
- 4af 9h00m-12h00m
- 6af 10h00m-13h00m
Detailed program and Bibliography
A. Introduction to Stellar Photometry by Doctor Vallery Stanishev (CENTRA)
Stellar photometry is a fundamental technique in astronomy. The course will introduce the modern CCD detectors, observing techniques, and the basics of the CCD data reduction and stellar photometry. The practical exercises will include reduction of one night of observations, building the multi-color light curves of a bright nearby supernova, and if the weather allows, night time observations at a small telescope located in Lisbon.
References:
1. "Handbook of CCD Astronomy" by Steve Howell
http://books.google.pt/books?id=Z_0sg7ZT_JQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=handbook+of+ccd+astronomy&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Very nice introduction to CCDs in astronomy and stellar photometry (Chapters 2-5). It is possible to provide these chapters printed.
2. CCD Data reduction with IRAF:
http://iraf.net/irafdocs/ccduser3.pdf
Advanced reading. IRAF is the most often used tool for CCD data reduction by professional astronomers.
3. A simple guide to aperture photometry:
http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys445/lectures/photom_2003/photom_2006.html
4. Magnitudes in Astronomy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_magnitude
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_magnitude
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminosity#In_astronomy
and other pages in Wikipedia.
5. Telescopes
http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~oliver/ast3722/lectures/Scope Optics/scopeoptics.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescope
B. Black hole binaries by Doctor Vitor Cardoso (CENTRA)
Black holes are one of the most ubiquitous objects in the Universe.
From the supermassive black holes lurking at the center of almost each galaxy to the millions of stellar-mass black holes, they make up an important, but yet poorly understood part of our Universe.
These are particularly exciting times for black hole research: in the next few years, gravitational-wave detectors are expected to measure gravitational waves coming directly from the inspiral of black hole binaries.
In this course, we will go over the basic properties of black holes, how they can be "seen" or heard.
References:
B. Schutz, "A first course in general relativity" (Cambridge U. Press)
James B. Hartle, "Gravity: an Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity" (Addison-Wesley)
Wanstein and Zubakov, "Extraction of Signals From Noise", Prentice Hall
http://www.ligo.org/
C. Probing Cosmology with the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiationby Doctor Mário Santos (CENTRA)
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) has provided exquisite constraints on the Cosmological Standard model. In this course, the student will learn about the CMB (in particular the power spectrum) and study its dependence on several cosmological parameters using available software. Particular emphasis will also be given to the constraining power of the Planck satellite which was recently launched and will soon start delivering unprecedented information about the early Universe.
Bibliography:
An introduction to Modern Astrophysics, B. Carroll and D. Ostlie, Pearson International Edition (just the Cosmology chapters)
- An Introduction to Modern Cosmology, Andrew Liddle, Wiley
- Cosmology: The Origin and Evolution of Cosmic Structures, Coles, Peter; Lucchin, Francesco, John Wiley & Sons Ltd