- Course Information and syllabus
(handout at first class)
- Homework 1, due Tuesday, September
28.
- Solutions to Homework 1.
- Homework 2, due Thursday, October
7.
- The quasar spectrum needed for
Homework 2.
- Solutions to Homework 2,
together with the code needed for Problem 1b
and Problem 1c, and Problem 2.
- Homework 3, due Tuesday, October
19. Here is an IDL procedure
that will be useful for Problem 1d.
- The A star spectrum needed for
Homework 3.
- Solutions to Homework 3,
together with the code needed for Problem 1b, 1c
and Problem 1d, and Problem 3a and 3b.
- Homework 4, due Tuesday, November 9.
- Solutions to Homework 4, together with the code needed for Problem 3.
- Data needed for Problem 1 of Homework 5
. - Homework 4, due Tuesday, November 9.
- Homework 5, due Thursday, November 18.
- Solutions to Homework 5,
together with the code needed for Problem 1.
- Homework 6, due Thursday, December
2.
- Solutions to Homework 6,
together with the code needed for Problem 1.
- Homework 7, due Thursday, December
16.
- Solutions to Homework 7,
together with the code needed.
- Homework 8, due Tuesday, January 11
(Dean's Date).
- Solutions to Homework 8,
together with the code needed.
Schedule for student presentations:
Tuesday, January 4: David Holtz ACT Allison Hume SKA Michelle Lu Galactic foregrounds Maria Nastasescu binary pulsars, GR, and gravity wave detection Thursday, January 6: Rachael Alexandroff SKA Shangjun Zhang VLBA or ACT Matthew DiDonato Astronomy from the moon Dale Mack SOHO Lehman Garrison The N-body problem Zachary Slepian Numerical Solution of Schrodinger Equation Tuesday, January 11: Carolina Nunez SALT Telescope Aaron Smargon High-contrast imaging; coronagraphs Joel Zinn Pierre Auger, AMANDA, and CR Margaret Shaw TPF Daniel Minkin Monte-Carlo simulation of asteroid collisions Nicholas Hand CMB polarization and ACTPol
- Useful astronomical
links. These are from AST 203, and so tend to the elementary...
- Possible topics for student
presentations during reading period.
- A brief introduction to Unix at
Princeton, by Robert Lupton and Jill Knapp.
- An introduction to X windows (the
window-manager system that many of the computers in the building use), by Robert Lupton.
- The NIST Digital Library of
Mathematical Functions, an update of the classic handbook by
Abramowitz and Stegun.
- The Second Edition of our textbook Numerical Recipes (i.e., not the latest
version) is available for free on the
web in C, Fortran 77, and Fortran 90.
- Here are hints from Tim Brandt about
getting IDL working properly on your computer, and some guidance on
how to write clear code.
- Useful
IDL documentation from Carl Heiles at Berkeley. Read in
particular his Quick IDL Tutorial Number 1.
- Guide
to IDL for Astronomers, by Robert O'Connell at Virginia. This is
quite wordy, and spends a lot of time describing the pros and cons of
IDL, before giving you practical advice. But it is quite
comprehensive.
Here
are more links from O'Connell.
- There is also a brief IDL
introduction at NYU.
- There is a comprehensive list
of IDL routines maintained by David Grier at NYU.
As you look at various IDL resources on the web and elsewhere, keep in mind that not all implementations are the same.
- The full, downloadable report of ASTRO2010,
The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey.
- The weekly
calendar of astrophysics-related talks in the Princeton area.
- ArXiv, the repository of the daily
preprints of the astrophysics community. There is a page describing how to sign
up to receive a daily update of astrophysics papers.
- The Astrophysics Data
System, a portal to essentially the complete journal literature of
astronomy.
Professors: Michael Strauss and David Spergel
Teaching Ass't: Tim Brandt.