1998 Astrophysics Postgraduate Lectures

These lectures are open to all, but aimed at postgraduate astronomy students. This year two 7-week courses will be given at UNSW and two at the University of Sydney.

1998 - IV. Observational Techniques (Sydney, October 6 - November 10)

Coordinator: Tim Bedding bedding@Physics.usyd.edu.au

We encourage all students to stay for journal club at 4-5pm in the same room (preceded by drinks and nibblies).

Tuesdays, 14:30-15:30, Room 320, Physics, University of Sydney

Date	Speaker(s)	Title
Oct 6	Richard Hunstead	Optical identification of radio sources
Oct 13	John Davis	Two-aperture stellar interferometry
Oct 20	Tim Bedding	Interferometry with big telescopes
Oct 27	John O'Byrne	Adaptive optics
Friday Oct 30	Elaine Sadler	Observing with the new large telescopes
Nov 10	Anne Green	How to find a maser

1998 - III. The Formation of Structure in the Universe (UNSW July 30 -Sep 10)

Coordinators: Michael Drinkwater mjd@phys.unsw.edu.au
Alberto Fernandez-Soto fsoto@bat.phys.unsw.edu.au

Thursdays, 12:00-13:00, Room 27, Physics (Old Main Building), UNSW.

Date Title Speaker

July 30 Star formation Michael Burton

August 6 Star populations in galaxies Lewis Jones

August 13 Galaxy formation Michael Drinkwater

August 20 Galaxy clusters Warrick Couch

August 27 Large Scale Structure I (Galaxies) Alberto Fernandez-Soto

September 3 Large Scale Structure II (QSOs and QSO absorbers) John Webb

September 10 The CMB and the growth of Large Scale Structure Charley Lineweaver

Date	Title	Speaker
July 30	Star formation	Michael Burton
August 6	Star populations in galaxies	Lewis Jones
August 13	Galaxy formation	Michael Drinkwater
August 20	Galaxy clusters	Warrick Couch
August 27	Large Scale Structure I (Galaxies)	Alberto Fernandez-Soto
September 3	Large Scale Structure II (QSOs and QSO absorbers)	John Webb
September 10	The CMB and the growth of Large Scale Structure	Charley Lineweaver

1998 - II. High Energy Astrophysics (Sydney, May 5 - June 16)

Coordinator: Tim Bedding bedding@Physics.usyd.edu.au

We encourage all students to stay for journal club at 4-5pm in the same room (preceded by drinks and nibblies).

Tuesdays, 14:30-15:30, Room 320, Physics, University of Sydney

Date	Speaker(s)	Title
May 5	Lewis Ball	Cosmic Rays
May 12	Simon Johnston	Formation and evolution of binary millisecond pulsars
May 19	Simon Johnston	The Where, What and Why of Gamma Ray Bursts
May 26	Don Melrose	Synchrotron Radiation
June 2	Kinwah Wu	Accretion processes
June 9	Carole Jackson	The physics of active galaxies
June 16	Kinwah Wu	X-rays from accreting compact objects

1998 - I. Statistical Methods in Astronomy (UNSW, March 5 - April 23)

Coordinators: Michael Drinkwater mjd@phys.unsw.edu.au (away March 7-28)
Lori Allen lea@roen.phys.unsw.edu.au

The aim of this course is to give an overview of some common statistical methods used in astronomy and explain some of the terminology. The emphasis will be on examples of what we do with real data rather than the theory (which can be found in the references below).

Thursdays, 12:00-13:00, Room 27, Physics (Old Main Building), UNSW.

Date	Speaker(s)	Title
March 5	M.Drinkwater	Introduction
March 12	M.Burton, L.Allen	Numerical Methods
March 19	A.Fernandez-Soto	Maximum-likelihood
March 26	C.Lineweaver	Parameter fitting-1
April 2	J.Webb	Parameter fitting-2
April 9	S.Driver	Monte-Carlo methods
April 16	none	Easter break
April 23	group discussion	Workshop to discuss examples

Data Reduction and Analysis, Lecture 5 in the 1997 course "Optical and Infrared Techniques", Michael Burton
Practical Statistics for Astronomers - I. Definitions, the Normal Distribution, Detection of Signal Wall, J.V. 1979, QJRAS, 20, 138-152
Practical Statistics for Astronomers - II. Correlation, Data-modelling and Sample Comparison Wall, J.V. 1996, QJRAS, 37, 519-563
Numerical recipes in C*: the art of scientific computing Second Edition, W.H. Press, et al., 1992, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (* C or FORTRAN or Pascal or BASIC)
Data reduction and error analysis for the physical sciences, Second Edition, P.R. Bevington, D.K. Robinson, 1992, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Nonparametric statistics for the behavioural sciences Second Edition, Siegel, S., Castellan, N.J., 1988, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Statistics: a guide to the use of statistical methods in the physical sciences Barlow, R., 1989, John Wiley, Chichester
Signal Processing Schwartz, M., Shaw, L., 1975, McGraw-Hill, New York
Theory and Problems of Statistics Spiegel, M.R., 1972, McGraw-Hill, New York

1997 UNSW Astrophysics Postgraduate Course

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M.Drinkwater
mjd@phys.unsw.edu.au
1998 Jul 15