Spring 2013 course

Astronomical Optics (2016)

Modern Astronomical Optics

Spring 2016

Letures and additional material for the course "Modern Astronomical Optics" (offered to graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Arizona)

Lectures prepared by Olivier Guyon, Phil Hinz, Michael Hart and Johanan Codona
Spring 2016 semester

This course provides an overview of astronomical optical systems for astronomy. It introduces astronomical and optical concepts related to exoplanets observations. By focusing on a particularly challenging observational problem of modern astronomy, the course will teach design and analysis of high precision optical systems and measurement techniques for astronomy, including spectroscopy, photometry, optical metrology and interferometry. Design and fabrication of both ground-based and space-based astronomical observatories and instruments will be discussed.

The course consists of lectures and team projects. For each of the four team projects during the semester, astronomy and optics students will work together to design a mission/telescope/instrument for astronomy, using material presented during the lectures. Each team projects will result in an oral presentation.

Lectures

1. Course introduction, Fundamentals of astronomical imaging systems

This part of the course serves as an introduction to the course, and introduces fundamental concepts of astronomy and optics which will be explored in more details during the rest of the course. Connect astronomy to telescope and instrument requirements. Introduction of units used for astronomy and how they relate to radiometric quantities.

2016-01-14: Introduction to course [pdf]
2016-01-19 & 2016-01-21: Fundamentals of astronomical imaging systems: diffraction limit, photon noise [pdf]

2. Fundamentals of Telescope Design

2016-01-21 & 2016-01-26: Telescope design part 1: Telescope types [pdf]
2016-01-26 & 2016-01-28: Telescope design part 2: Wide Field of View and Aberration Correction [pdf]
2016-02-09: Design and Manufacture of Mirrors, and Active Optics (Buddy Martin) [pptx]

Team projects #1

Spectroscopy

2016-02-04: Spectroscopy part 1
2016-02-18: Spectroscopy part 2

Space Optics

2016-02-23: Space Optics (James Breckinridge), part 1
2016-02-25: Space Optics (James Breckinridge), part 2
2016-03-01: Space Optics (James Breckinridge), part 3 Space astronomy: Spectrometers and polarimeters - Polarization aberrations
2016-03-03: Space Optics (James Breckinridge), part 4 Space astronomy: Hubble and how we used AO to fix it

Team projects #2

Atmospheric Turbulence

2016-03-10: Atmospheric Turbulence

Team projects #3

Interferometry

2016-03-22: Interferometry: fundamentals
2016-03-24: Interferometry: Beam combination
2016-03-29: Interferometry: Cophasing

Adaptive Optics

High contrast imaging

2016-04-19: High contast imaging

Nulling interferometry

2016-04-26: Nulling interferometry

Textbooks

The following texbooks are suggested for reference, but not required:

Astronomical Optics (Shroeder)
Exoplanets (Seager)

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