ASTR310, Fall 2013
Observational Astronomy
Instructor:
Prof. Andrew Harris
Lecture Time: TuTh 2:00-3:15 PM
Lecture Room: CSS 2428
Teaching Assistant: Ms. Mahmuda Afrin Badhan
Observatory Assistant: Mr. David Blankenship, Jr.
Textbook: Observational Astronomy
(Second edition), c. 2006
by D. Scott Birney, Guillermo Gonzalez, David Oesper
Cambridge University Press
(ISBN-978-0-521-85370-5)
Class Information
Sample data for labs and observing projects
Lab 1: 300sec_m57_Ha.fits
The DS9 FITS-file viewer
You can look at your FITS files with a very useful program called
DS9. On the Astronomy Department computers you will need load DS9
the first time you want to use it. First, get to the command
prompt and type:
source
/astromake/astromake start
astroload ds9
After that you can type
ds9
whenever you need the viewer, until you log out. You can
download a free copy for your own computer from https://hea-www.harvard.edu/RD/ds9/site/Download.html
Weather predictions for the University of Maryland Observatory
Thanks to The Clear Sky
Chart web site, forecast
for the Observatory with explanations. The short
answer: look for columns of blue squares!
