Physics 134 – Observational Astrophysics – Fall 2023

Meeting time: MW 12:30-13:45 Broida 5223

Prof Philip Lubin

Office – 2015 C Broida

Office hours: TBD 

Class contact email address – lubin@.ucsb.edu

TA:   Jeonghwa Kim

Office Hours: Generally after class in the same room as our class

e-mail: jeonghwa_kim@ucsb.edu

Learning Asst: TBD

e-mail:

Textbook: To Measure the Sky – F. Chromey – Cambridge Press – 2nd edition

Final presentations:

Tue Dec 12 from 12-3 in class

https://registrar.sa.ucsb.edu/calendars/calendars-deadlines/final-examinations/fall-final-examination-schedule

 

Example Phys 134 projects – F 22 class

A Feasibility Analysis of Constraining Orbital Precession Driven by Mutual Inclination Through Long-Cadence Kepler Light Curves

An Astrometric Observation of Binary Star Systems STF 42AB and STF 1169AB

Astrometry of Binary Star Systems Astrometry of Selected Binary Star Systems

Binary Systems

Constraints on Secular Perturbations in Impact Parameter Amongst Kepler Planets

Development of a Photometry Pipeline for Las Cumbres Observatory Data in Python

Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram

H-R diagram of Messier 55

HR Diagram

HR Diagrams for the Eagle Nebula and the Little Beehive Cluster

HR Photometry of M55

Hubble Constant

Light Curve of a Type II Supernova

Measuring different types of Cepheid Variables

Measuring the Separation and Position Angle of Two Double Stars STF 1169 AB and STF 42 AB

Messier 55 HR Diagram

Observation and Period-Luminosity Relationship Analysis of Cepheid Variable Stars

Period-luminosity Relation of the Cepheid Variable Stars and Its Importance in Measurement of Cosmic Distance

Photometric Analysis of Three Prominent Stella Clusters; Messier 2 (NGC 7089)

Beehive Cluster (NGC 2632), and Tarantula Nebula Cluster (NGC 2070)

Photometric redshift survey 2

Photometric Redshift Survey

Photometry of Recent Type Ia Supernova – SN 2022wpy

PHYS134L Final Project

Pipeline Progress Fall 2020

Pulsar Spin Down Luminosity

Pulsars and their Surrounding Nebulae Energy Transfer Calculations and Data Analysis in Python

SN 2022wsp A Type II-P Supernova Through Light Curve Analysis

 

Example Phys 134 projects – S 23 class

Photometric Redshift Survey

Photometric Redshift Survey-2

HR Diagram M44 and M13

Short-Period Eclipsing Binary KIC 3833859

Spectroscopy of HD 126053

Study of Partial Tidal Disruption Events

Studying TDE candidate ASASSN-18ul_AT2018fyk

Estimating Photometric Redshifts Using Template-Based and Empirical-Based Methods on Faint Galaxies

Spectroscopy of HR126053

An Examination of Various Supernovae-Classification and Light Curves

Computing Properties of Binary and Double Stars

Discovery of WASP-14b via Transit Photometry

Double Stars and Stellar Binary Systems An Astrometric Analysis

Eclipsing Binary Star System

Exoplanet Detection via Transit Photometry

Finding WASP-14b with Transit Photometry

Globular vs. Open Cluster HR Diagrams

Ground-based Visible Light Photometry of Supernova

HD 126053 A Spectroscopic Study

Hertzsprung-Russell Diagrams For Clusters M13 and M6

Hertzsprung-Russell Diagrams of Two Messier Clusters

HR Diagram of M20 and M7

HR Diagrams and Clustering Analysis of Open Cluster M6 and Globular Cluster M13

HR Diagrams of The Beehive Cluster (M44) and The Great Cluster in Hercules (M13)

Light Curve Analysis of AT2023hpb

Light Curve Analysis of Supernova AT2023hpb

Light Curve and Spectroscopic Analysis of Cygnus X-1

Light Curves of a Type II Supernova AT2023hpb

Light Curves of Supernova AT2023hpb

Orbital Period and Light Curve Analysis of Cygnus X-1

 

Image processing program often used in the class – PC (Win) for Mac see link below:

This AstroArt program is very useful if you plan on doing longer term work in astro image processing but it is not free. The demo (very useful) is free.

It is installed on UCSB machines in the class.

Astro Art for astronomical image processing

http://www.msb-astroart.com/

 

Running Astro Art on a Mac:

https://www.astroart-forum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=382

 

Running Astro Art image processing code remotely using UCSB machines:

http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~pcs/apps/accessconnectwise.html

 

Useful Free Programs:

DS9 – Astronomical Image Processing

http://ds9.si.edu/site/Download.html

Astro Image J – Astronomical Image Processing

https://www.astro.louisville.edu/software/astroimagej/

FITS Liberator – turns FITS files into common image formats

https://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/fits_liberator/

GIMP – Similar to Photoshop

https://www.gimp.org/

In The Sky – Astronomical Sky Plotter of objects

https://in-the-sky.org/graphs.php

https://in-the-sky.org/

Skymaker – image simulation software

https://www.astromatic.net/software/skymaker

Astrometry.Net – astrometry analysis of images – identifies and locates the position of your objects

https://astrometry.net/

 

Useful textbook:

Observational Astrophysics – P. Lena

https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783642218149

An Introduction to Observational Astrophysics – Mark Gallaway – Springer 2016

Available on Amazon as paperback and eBook

Useful paper with comparison of ground and space detection – oriented towards SETI but applicable to all observing:

“The Search for Directed Intelligence”

REACH – Reviews in Human Space Exploration – Vol 1, 20-45, March 2016

http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.02108

 

Astronomy Picture of the Day

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy_Picture_of_the_Day

 

LCO Resources

  • Instruments

lco.global/observatory/instruments/

  • Exposure and SNR Calculator

exposure-time-calculator.lco.global/

  • Visibility Calculator

https://lco.global/observatory/visibility/

  • Filters

lco.global/observatory/instruments/filters/

  • BANZAI – Data Processing Pipeline

lco.global/documentation/data/BANZAIpipeline/

  • Recent Science and Educational Research (great for ideas)

lco.global/highlights/

  • Spacebook – Learn Astronomy (good overview)

lco.global/spacebook/

  • Decompressing FPacked data – converting .FZ files to .FITS

https://lco.global/education/observing/fpack/

 

LSST – Rubin Observatory –  Science Book

https://www.lsst.org/scientists/scibook

 

Hubble Space Telescope Legacy Database – HST FITS Images and spectra

https://hla.stsci.edu/

 

Siena Galaxy Atlas – 400,000 galaxies – SGA 2020 

https://sga.legacysurvey.org/

https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.04888

The SGA-2020 uses optical grz imaging over 20,000 deg2 from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys Data Release 9 and infrared imaging in four bands (spanning 3.4-22 μm) from the six-year unWISE coadds.

It is more than 95% complete for galaxies larger than R(26)25 arcsec and r<18 measured at the 26 mag arcsec2 isophote in r-band.

The atlas delivers precise coordinates, multi-wavelength mosaics, azimuthally averaged optical surface brightness profiles, model images and photometry, and additional ancillary metadata for the full sample.

 

Aladin Lite Sky Atlas

https://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/AladinLite/

 

Observable Asteroids and Comets and other objects

https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbwobs.html#/

https://theskylive.com/

 

Simbad Database

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/

Example search for SDSS 20J091557.78:

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=%4010199759&Name=SDSS%20J091557.78%2b292626.4&submit=submit

 

Exoplanet Transit Database for Occultation

http://var2.astro.cz/ETD/predictions.php

 

Asteroids and Comets

https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi

https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/

 

Supernova Databases

Latest supernovae by Rochester Astronomy at Purdue University:
http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/supernova.html

 

Transient Name Server – generally useful for searching known transients

https://wis-tns.weizmann.ac.il/

Example for SN 2019slu

https://wis-tns.weizmann.ac.il/object/2019slu

 

Astrophotography – How to make a beautiful tri-color image

Astrophotography post-processing

 

Examples of class Tri-Color astronomical imaging – Right click and Open in New Tab to view full image

60 MP monochrome CMOS FPA (1 e read noise) on Planewave Delta Rho 350

 

DSLR Astrophotography – Sherwin Shi – ZIP files – download to access images

Startrails-1-Sherwin Shi

Startrails-2-Sherwin Shi

Milkyway-Sherwin Shi

SpaceX Launchs-Sherwin Shi

Moon-Sherwin Shi

 

 

Homework – HW will be assigned as needed. Submit on Canvas.

Every day – look at the APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day)https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

HW 1 – Due Oct 9 – Form 2-3 person team, write up 2 page paper on why this is a interesting project and suitable for the class and present research project (as a team) in 5 min PPTX format to entire class

HW 2–  Due Oct 16 – Astro Art tutorials (use class or PSR – some can be done on Astro Art demo (free) – submit one PDF  of all relevant tutorial screen shots.

HW 3 – Due Oct 30 – UAP Research – HW

HW 4 – Due Oct 30 – Physics 134 HW 1-a

HW 5 – Due Nov 13 – bbColors bbColors-a (see below)

 

Final Exam

Each team will present a 20 minute talk summarizing all of all of their work. Split the time , as usual, between each team member to allow everyone to speak.

Introduce the project(s) with some background as to what you are doing and why it is important and what the larger context in astronomy is for this subject.

Final Research Paper – Have ready by the final and place in your folder under a sub directory call “Final Research Paper”. The paper should be about 20 pages long and should include the following sections:

  • Introduction and theory of project
  • Historical background
  • Larger context of importance of the research
  • Data collection including any problems you had
  • Summary images of your data (all your good data (images, plots, code etc)) should be placed in dir with the paper under a sub (sub) dir “Data”
  • Data analysis including plots
  • Error analysis as appropriate
  • Summary and conclusions including what you would do next time if you were to do it “all over again”

 

Class Gmail account (will not be used this quarter):

User: ucsb.physics134

Pass: given in class

Class Data Server – UCSB Box (this is where your LCO images will appear and where you will put your PPTX or equivalent presentations.

Make a sub directory with your full name (first and last). DO NOT delete other peoples folders!

ucsb.box.com 

sign-in with UCSB Net ID

 

Stellarium – http://www.stellarium.org/ – this is very useful in planning your observations.

 

Events and Links (Note that due to the current CV situation, most of these are remote and may be at different times/ days this quarter)

Physics Department Colloquium: Tuesdays at 4:00 in Broida 1640

Astro Colloquium:

LCOGT Colloq (check schedule) usually Thur 3:30-4:30 at the LCOGT facility – BUT van to colloq leaves from Physics lot at 3:15 and you must sign up to get room on the van. Van returns you to Broida after talk.

Physics Dept Colloq schedule

Physics Dept Colloq talk list

Astro web event schedule,  

LCOGT Colloq Schedule (must sign up for van)

KITP Schedule

LCOGT – Las Cumbres Observatory

Sedgwick Weather log

LCO – Exposure Time Calculator

LCO – Visibility Tool 

LCO – Instruments

LCO – Filters

 

Available filters on 0.4m LCO telescopes:

  • Bessel-B
  • Bessel-V
  • Clear
  • PanSTARRS-Z
  • PanSTARRS-w
  • SDSS-gp
  • SDSS-ip
  • SDSS-rp
  • SDSS-up

 

 

Blackbody and Color temperature HW exercise is here:

bbColors-b

Blackbody Calculator:

https://www.spectralcalc.com/blackbody_calculator/blackbody.php

 

Observing Projects

Each student will do several observing projects. We encourage groups of students to work together. A maximum of three students per groups. Single student projects are also possible.

You should have two or three science-oriented observing projects and no more than one astrophotography
(pretty picture) project (three projects in all). Each group or student will give a 5 minute presentation on ONE of each of their projects. This is not
optional. In general this is done during class meetings.

 

Here is an example request form to submit to the TA, who will then submit your request to LCO and return the data to you:

Observation Request Sheet template

 

Ongoing Information

Class Notes

The most up to date version of the class notes (different than the observation instructions, below)
can be found below. Copies should be available on the class drive, but they cannot be guaranteed
to be up to date.

Class Notes available here:

134-Notes – 10-22

Aperture Photometry Notes:

CH6 – Aperture Photometry

Lectures

Phys 134 Lecture1 10-20-22

Phys 134 Lecture2 10-20-22

Coordinate Systems and Time-a

Large Scale CCD and CMOS – Phys 134 – b

Keck Wide Field Imager

 

Center for Adaptive Optics Lectures

https://www.ucolick.org/~max/289/

 

Astroart Labs and Tutorials

In the newer versions of AstroArt there are tutorial in the Help area under “Quick Start Tutorials”. Please use the newer version which is installed on the class computers.

Tutorial #1  Noise reduction.

Tutorial #2  Dark frame and flat field correction.

Tutorial #3  Blinking two images.

Tutorial #4  Deconvolution.

Tutorial #5  Aligning and summing images.

Tutorial #6  Trichromy and LRGB.

Tutorial #7  Image processing on comets.

Tutorial #8  Mosaic.

Tutorial #9  Astrometric and photometric reduction.

Tutorial #10  FFT.

Tutorial #11  Masks.

Tutorial #12  Camera control.

Tutorial #13  Scripts.

 

In the older version to do the Astroart Labs, follow the tutorial given here (http://users.libero.it/mnico/labindex.htm). You should be able to do labs 1-3,5, and 6,
but please do check out the others and read what they have to say. A few of the commands
mentioned have been deprecated since this was made, but you should be able to find your way
around anyway. The images needed are present in the Astroart Labs directory on the class drive.
If they are corrupted, you can recreate them with the zipped files present.

 

Observing with LCOGT’s BOS Telescope

See the quick guide linked below. After your observation is made, the relevant FITS files will be put
on to the class server account. Simply upload/download your files to your directory on the class drive and begin working with them as you please.

Observation Instructions

To add an observation, click on the “Google Calendar” button, log in on the class gmail account,
and make your edits there. Be careful not to disturb other observations!