ASTR 8020/3890: Astronomical Survey Techniques
Fall 2020 Links



Week1
My Git Primer
DSI Git Tutorial
Git Website
Git Tutorial
Interactive Git Visualization Tool
Simple Guide to Git
Basic Git Commands
Git Command Cheat Sheet
Git GUIs (I have used SourceTree)
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My Python Primer
Anaconda Python
if __name__ == "__main__":
Examples of publication-quality figures
The comprehensive Python tutorial
numpy.loadtxt
numpy.genfromtxt
The matplotlib tutorial
How to fit a line in Python (scroll down for examples)
Python for astronomers
Community library for astronomy-related Python tools

Week2
astropy - install with conda
PyFITS - (astro) industry standard fits file handler
PyFITS documentation from STScI
fitsio github repository - an alternative fits handler
Why did astropy adopt PyFITS?
What are rec arrays?
More than you ever wanted to know about the FITS standard
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Models of airmass
astropy.coordinates
astropy.time
Hints on calculating airmass for an observing location (see instructions [31-35] in "Using frame transformations to get to AltAz")

Week3
Help with SkyCoord for Galactic coordinates
RA/Dec of the constellations, click a constellation for a map
Rotation Matrix
Galactic Coordinate System
Ecliptic Coordinate System

Week4
Discovery of Interstellar Dust; Trumpler (1930)
Github page for sfdmap package
Github page for SFD dust maps in fits format
Github page for extinction package
SDSS Navigate Tool
Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998)
Dust Maps; Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998) -- webpage
Equations for interstellar reddening by dust
numpy.meshgrid (see final example)
Matplotlib contour plots
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Map Projections in matplotlib (see commands starting from [15])
Using astropy.wcs for coordinate projections
Astropy contourf for filled contours
Map Projections
The equal-area Hammer-Aitoff Projection
The equations behind the Hammer-Aitoff projection

Week5
The Hierarchical Triangular Mesh (HTM)
The HTM Technical Report
astropy and 2-D distances on the sphere
Matching a set of points to another set of points
The k-d tree
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Install healpy
Intro to HEALPix
JPL's HEALPix Primer
Gorski et al. (2005): useful figures for visualizing HEALPix
Area of a Zone from Wolfram MathWorld
HEALPix Pixelisation related functions
Spherical Coordinates, θ and φ
numpy.histogram
numpy.where
steradians

Week6
The Spherical Cap from Wolfram MathWorld
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Mangle Documentation
pymangle examples
astroconda install (slooooow)

Week7
The Dark Energy Survey
Rubin Observatory
Gaia
The Hierarchical Triangular Mesh (HTM)
The HTM Technical Report
SDSS SQL Tutorial
SDSS DR16 SQL Search Box
SDSS DR16 Schema Browser
SDSS DR16 Navigate Tool
Matplotlib scatter plots and marker size

Week8
The VLA FIRST Survey
SDSS DR15
SDSS DR15 data
SDSS DR15 sweep files
SDSS data sweep index
SDSS imaging

Week9
WISE forced photometry data model
Forced photometry of WISE (Lang et al. 2014)
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Flux
nanomaggies
Vega Magnitudes and the UBV system - Johnson & Morgan (1953)
UBVRI Johnson-Bessell-Cousins filter system
The star α Lyrae (Vega)
Flux measurements of Vega - Oke & Schild (1970)
AB magnitudes - Oke (1974)
Absolute AB magnitude system - Oke & Gunn (1983)
AB magnitudes of Vega in ugriz, and converting from SDSS ugriz to UBVRI
Converting from AB magnitudes to Vega magnitudes
asinh magnitudes - Lupton et al. (1999)
SDSS description of asinh magnitudes
Standard Star PG1633+099A
SDSS Navigate Tool

Week10
Quasar color cuts; Richards et al. (2002)
Black Body Radiation
Kirchhoff's Laws of Spectroscopy

Week11
SDSS DR15 Schema Browser
SDSS DR15 Navigate Tool
Bitmasks
Bitmasks in SDSS
Bitwise operators
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SDSS Filters
Early photometric redshift paper; Koo (1985)
Very early photometric redshift paper; Baum (1962)
Photometric redshifts of quasars; Richards et al. (2001)
Photometric redshifts of quasars; Weinstein et al. (2004)

Week12
The SDSS Stripe 82 Coadd; Annis et al. (2011)
The SDSS Stripe 82 SQL Catalog Archive Server
The SDSS Stripe 82 Standard Star Catalog
The SDSS Stripe 82 Variable Source Catalog
The SDSS DR16 Quasar Catalog
The LSST Science Book: Chapter 8, The Transient and Variable Universe
Supernovae in the Dark Energy Survey
Zwicky Transient Facility
The SDSS Stripe 82 SQL Catalog Archive Server
The SDSS Stripe 82 Standard Star Catalog
The SDSS Stripe 82 Variable Source Catalog
The SDSS DR14 Quasar Catalog
The SDSS Supernova Survey
CRTS data access
Pan-STARRS data access
PTF/ZTF data access (go to Catalogs)
DES DR1 data access
Rubin Observatory Brokers
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Hyper-velocity stars; Brown et al. (2005)
Proper motion of galaxies; Brunthaler et al. (2005)

Week13
A useful reference for χ2 and Δχ2
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Numpy Covariance
Example matrix inversion with numpy
Another example matrix inversion with numpy


Week15
Bayesian Inference
Step-by-step MCMC example
David Hogg on line fitting (part 1)
David Hogg on line fitting (part 2)
David Hogg on line fitting (part 3)
David Hogg on line fitting (part 4)
David Hogg on line fitting (part 5)
David Hogg on line fitting (part 6)
David Hogg on line fitting (part 7)
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emcee: the MCMC hammer
emcee: Fitting a model to data
PyMC3
PyMC3 tutorial