Hello all,
  As you know, you will each give a fifteen minute presentation during
  reading period on a topic relating to the material in the course.
  We would like to ask each of you to choose a topic and write a
  paragraph or two describing what you will cover; hand this in by
  Thursday, November 20.  We will give you feedback on your choice and
  suggestions of specific resources to use and topics to focus on.
  We'll also try to avoid duplication of topics between you (two of
  you have already said that the sodium lasers for adaptive optics
  sound like a particularly interesting thing to talk about!).  
  And of course, we would be happy to go over your presentation before
  you give it, to give further suggestions. 

  The following list should give you some sense of what appropriate
topics might be.  Please do not feel restricted to this list.
Moreover, some of these topics are very broad, and it may be more
appropriate to focus on a specific issue within each of these topics.

  This list is also available on the course home page. 

				-Michael and David

*********** Observatories and observational techniques
The Physics of Astronomical Seeing
Heterodyne vs. Bolometric Receivers
Phased Array Antennas
The plans for the Square Kilometer Array
                  Mileura Array
                  LOFAR
                  Extended VLA
                  ALMA
The operation and science of the VLBA
Making radio maps
Comparing radio dish design: Green Bank vs. Arecibo
Astrometry with radio telescopes
Cosmic Microwave Background experiments:
                 Interferometers versus Single Dish
                 Balloon-borne experiments
                 Ground-based vs. space-based missions
                 WMAP operations
		 Atacama Cosmology Telescope
                 How Planck will work
                 Measuring CMB Polarization
		 Measuring and correcting for foregrounds
Millimeter and submillimeter facilities:
                 Technology, Sites, and beating the atmosphere
The instrumentation on the Spitzer Space Telescope 
         (or focus on a single instrument)
The instrumentation on the Hubble Space Telescope 
         (or focus on a single instrument)
The plans for the James Webb Space Telescope 
         (or focus on a single instrument)
Sky backgrounds in the optical and ultraviolet
		in the infrared
		in the millimeter
Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM) plans
Present and future infrared missions:
    Spitzer
    ASTRO-F
    WISE
    Herschel
How data is transferred from space telescopes to the ground
Doing astronomy from the moon
Modern large optical telescope design
Plans for 30-meter and 100-meter optical telescopes
The design of high-resolution echelle spectrographs
Measuring radial velocities of stars to accuracies of meters/second
The design of solar telescopes
Optical aberrations and their control
Extreme high-contrast imaging and coronagraphs
Active optics
Adaptive optics
Planetary searches from Space:
	  The Kepler mission
	  The SIM mission
	  Terrestrial Planet Finder and Darwin
High-resolution X-ray imaging; how X-rays are focussed	
Coded masks and imaging gamma rays
Ground-based Cerenkov Cosmic ray detectors:
	     Fly's Eye
	     Auger
	     AMANDA
  High Energy X-ray and Gamma Ray Experiments
             Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory
	     INTEGRAL
	     HESS
	     GLAST
Detecting gravitational waves:
	  Binary pulsars
	  LIGO
	  LISA

Accurate measurements of time in astronomy
Detecting polarized light in astronomy
	    In the optical
	    In the radio
Comparing CCD and CMOS detectors for optical astronomy
Building large detector arrays:
	  In the optical (CCDs)
	  In the near-infrared
	  In the millimeter
Optical design of large telescopes
The manufacture of large telescope: segmented versus meniscus mirrors
Next generation of wide-field optical surveys:
          Pan-STARRS
	  LSST
	  Dark Energy Survey
	  WFMOS
	  Subaru and HSC

************Statistical and numerical techniques
  Markov Processes
  Simulated Annealing: how it really works
  Techniques for non-linear chi^2 minimization, e.g., Levenberg- 
	     Marquardt
  Non-parametric and rank statistics
  Techniques for measuring periodicity in data
     Matched Filters
  Data compression, both lossy and lossless
  Advanced techniques for numerical integration
  The inversion of really big matrices
  Fast Fourier Transforms
  Wavelet Transforms
  Fitting a line when you have errors in both x and y
  Stellar Models
  Techniques for the N-body gravitational problem
     Direct integration and the GRAPE machine
     Particle-Mesh
     Particle-Particle-Particle-Mesh
     Adaptive Mesh
     Putting in gas physics: Eulerian and Lagrangian schemes
     Chaos and stability in the solar system
   Numerical radiative transfer
   Numerical hydrodynamics
   Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics
   Magnetohydrodynamics