UCO/Lick Observatory

Sophia Hazel Levy McDonald

Observational Astronomy Workshop

October 13 - October 17, 2022

Lick Observatory, Mt Hamilton, CA

Workshop Materials

All materials required for the workshop activities are located here for reference and download. They are also available for download on the workshop Google Drive. If you have difficulty downloading materials, contact the Support Astronomers for assistance.

Workshop Poster

Participant List (updated 2022-10-14)

Observing Logsheets

Nickel Logsheet 2022-10-14 through 2022-10-16

Kast Logsheet 2022-10-15 through 2022-10-16

CAT Logsheet 2022-10-15 through 2022-10-16

Lecture Notes

Introduction to Observational Astronomy

Introduction to CCD Astronomy

Introduction to Near InfraRed Astronomy

Introduction to Adaptive Optics

Night Sky and Public Education Resources

Observation Planning

Observing Planning Worksheet

Observing Planning Resources

Summary of available telescopes and their instruments
Summary of available direct imaging cameras
Summary of available spectrometers
Lick Observatory October 2022 Astronomical Calendar
Lick Observatory Astronomical Calendars
Shane Telescope Pointing limits
Nickel Telescope Pointing Limits
CAT Telescope Pointing Limits
Kast Exposure Time Calculator

Project Descriptions

Exposure Times and Limiting Magnitudes

Data Reduction

There are two data reduction activies. Direct imaging data reduction using Python and spectroscopic data reduction using IRAF (and a little Python).

Direct Imaging Data Reduction

Workshop participants should download the Jupyter Notebook for Python 2 or 3 according to what version of python you have installed. If you are not using Anaconda/Jupyter, you'll want to download the related PDF and/or html and/or text files. Everyone will want to download the associated images listed below as well and put them in the same directory as the Jupyter, html, and text files.

Python 3:
Jupyter Notebook
Data Reduction PDF
Data Reduction Text file
Data Reduction HTML file

Python 2:
Jupyter Notebook
Data Reduction PDF
Data Reduction Text file
Data Reduction HTML file

Images:
FolderStructure.png
DS9-BadColFix.png
DS9-FlatField.png
DS9-FlatFieldedData.png
DS9-BadColFix.png

2022-10-15 Nickel+CCD Data
2022-10-16 Nickel+CCD Data
Nickel+CCD Data, 2018-10-13 (to be used in case conditions prevent taking your own data with the Nickel Telescope).
Nickel+CCD Data, 2020-10-10 (to be used in case conditions prevent taking your own data with the Nickel Telescope).

If you have a recent M1 Mac and can't get DS9 to work, the following Jupyter Notebook gives a basic example of image display: Python FITS file image display

Spectroscopic Data Reduction

Data Reduction Setup

Spectral Data Reduction Tutorial

Calibration Arc Spectra

2022-10-15 Shane+Kast Data
2022-10-16 Shane+Kast Data
Shane+Kast Data, 2018-10-13 (if you do not acquire your own data in 2022).

For the ambitious student that wants to try reducing Echelle spectrograph data:

The following are not strictly necessary for the workshop, but are useful for Lick Observatory data reduction.

Python Scripts:
fixbadCCDcols.py
overscanLickObsP3.py