PHAS3332 (Practical Astronomy 3: Field Trip) 2009

INTRODUCTION

PHAS3332 (abbreviated as `3332' in this Guide) is a half-unit course in practical observational astronomy conducted partly at the Observatory in Mill Hill, and partly during a week of field observations (the `Field Trip') carried out at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (OHP), France. The course is intended to provide further training in the acquisition, reduction and analysis of astronomical observations. The course is open to students in the third year of the B.Sc. and M.Sci. degrees; the content of 3332 is identical for both degrees. Course 3330 is a prerequisite for course 3332. Assessment of 3332 is continuous: there is no closed examination associated with this course. Several orientation sessions are held at ULO in the weeks before departure for France. Further sessions, for data reduction and analysis, take place at ULO after the return to London.

The Field Trip will involve carrying out observing programmes on two of the telescopes at OHP. The first of these involves CCD imaging photometry of pulsating variable stars on the 1.20-m telescope. The second programme is devoted to high-resolution spectroscopy of chemically peculiar stars on the 1.52-m telescope. Each student participant will execute part of both observing programmes, then all of the observations will be pooled for analysis and description in a report written separately and individually by each student.

Each student is expected to submit three written reports for the course:

1. An Orientation Report, to be submitted by 2009 February 25 (worth up to 150 marks);

2. A report on CCD imaging photometry of RR Lyrae Stars with the 1.20-m telescope at l'Observatoire de Haute-Provence, to be submitted by 2009 March 25 (worth up to 250 marks);

3. A report on Spectroscopic binary stars observed with the 1.52-m telescope at l'Observatoire de Haute Provence, also to be submitted by 2009 April 30 (worth up to 400 marks).

All reports must be submitted in duplicate, so that they can be marked independently by two markers.

The Field Trip has been allocated time on both the 1.20-m and 1.52-m telescopes at OHP. The observing run will begin at 14:00 on 2009 January 27 and finish on the morning of February 2 (six nights in total).

Travel arrangements. Participants will travel by train from London Saint Pancras station to Avignon TGV station, where they will be met by OHP drivers and taken to the Observatory. The party will depart London on Monday, January 26 and be back in London on Tuesday, February 3. Click here to see the itinerary.

Orientation sessions will take place at ULO on 2009 January 14 and 21 (both Wednesday), between 14:30 and 18:00. Every student taking part in the Field Trip must attend all orientation sessions.

Student Participants: Matthew Harrison, Abigail Jones, Luke Peck, Cherry (Wing Yan) Ng, Steven Tame, Alice Whalley, Nicholas Wood and Xin Yi. Click the following link to see the observing groups and target assignments.

Staff: Stephen Boyle and Theo Schlichter.

A useful resource, provided by Thomasin Renshaw in 1999: French vocabulary for astronomy.

The following students took part in the Field Trip in 2008: Laura de Poitiers, Emile Doran, Maria Duffy, Omar Gardner, Kalle Karhunen, William Lyne, Ingo Waldmann and Laura Watson. Accompanying members of UCL staff: Stephen Boyle, Mick Pearson and Iraklis Konstantopoulos. Clear nights: 4.7 out of 6 allocated. Ingo Waldmann contributed this fine image of M82, obtained with the 1.20-m telescope. The organiser wrote this report on the trip (pdf document).

The following students took part in the Field Trip in 2007: Josephina Delahaye, Fotini Economou, Lee Harrop, Adam Hawken, Katarina Markovic, Anna Pinardi, Awat Rahimi, Krystle Reid, Daniel Short, Alistair Smith, Jessica Valle Orero and Daniel Went. Accompanying members of UCL staff: Stephen Boyle and Theo Schlichter. Clear nights: 2.5 out of 6 allocated.

The following students took part in the Field Trip in 2006: Matt Austin, Richard Cook, Anna Dejardin, Sam Farrens, Daniel John, Alana Rivera Ingraham, Benedict O'Donnell, Michael Peneycad, Harry Rogers, Samantha Skinner, Richard Woods and Erkan Yldirim. Accompanying members of UCL staff: Stephen Boyle and Mick Pearson. Clear nights: 3.5 out of 6 allocated.

The following students took part in the Field Trip in 2005: Carolyn Atkins, Deborah Baker, Anastasia Freshville, Geraldine Marien, Mark Shearsby, David Sutton, Dragana Vukovic, Mischa Watson and Rosemary Willatt. Accompanying members of UCL staff: Stephen Boyle and Thomas Schlichter. Clear nights: 5.4 out of 6 allocated, but it was very windy on January 31st. Some time was lost to instrument problems: initiation of Midas software on the 1.20-m telescope and a fault in the cooling system on the CCD camera on the 1.52-m telescope.

The following students took part in the Field Trip in 2004: Karmand Ali-Kader, Seema Babbar, James Dowie, Lisa Harris, Patricia Herranz-Hernandez, Iraklis Konstantopoulos, Diana Law, Alex Lotinga, David Murphy, Kunal Patel, Jennifer Roderick and Oli Walton. Accompanying members of UCL staff: Stephen Boyle, Mark Westmoquette and Mick Pearson. Clear nights: 4.1 out of 6 allocated. David Murphy contributed this colourful image of M51, obtained with the 1.20-m telescope

The following students took part in the Field Trip in 2003: Gregory Colbourn, Pau Comellas, Oliver Crowley, Jeremy Davey, Ben Fillmore, Melanie Hawthorn, Andrea Klettner, Pavel Machalek, Emma Muir, William Reece, Artur Tarczynski and Patricia Verrier. Stephen Boyle, UCL teaching fellow, led the trip. This year was comparatively unlucky with the weather: 3.5 clear nights, out of 6 nights allocated, were clear.

In 2002 the students participants were: Matthew Callender, Rachel Clarke, Robert Cockcroft, John de Rohan-Truba, Matthew Geal, Elizabeth Hodges, Nicola Mehrtens, Alastair Partington, Rachael Savage, George Seabroke, Carys Toms and Mark Westmoquette. For the second time in the five-year history of the Field Trip, all of the students passed the course with a first-class mark. Stephen Boyle accompanied. Alastair took some fine photos. The Field Trip enjoyed 4.5 clear nights, out of 6 nights allocated.

The following students took part in the Field Trip in 2001: Leo Ballerio, Robert Barber, Catherine Barraclough, Janice Drohan, Joanna Fabbri, Adam Hill, Richard Knowelden, Justyn Maund, Matthew Pitkin, Nutan Rajguru, Suzanna Randall and Fabrizio Sidoli. The accompanying members of staff were Stephen Boyle and Roger Wesson (student participant in the 1999 Field Trip, now a postgraduate at UCL). The number of clear nights was 4.8 out of 6.

Congratulations to the students who went on the Field Trip in 2000: Beth Argent, Ben Burningham, Yvonne Ho, Xavier Koenig, Leigh Jenkins, Dawn Leslie, Robert Macciochi, Tamara Repolust, David Seaman, Dan Stansall, Harriet Williams and Dugan Witherick. They all passed the course with a first-class mark (that is, they all scored at least 70%). Stephen Boyle and Clare Jenner (student participant in 1999, now a postgraduate at UCL) accompanied the trip this year. The number of clear nights was 5.5 out of 6.

Click the following link to see some evocative photos taken during the 1999 Field Trip by Roger Wesson. The 11 other students who went were: Catherine Dandy, Andrew Fox, Matthew Harvey, Alexander James, Clare Jenner, James Macey, Henrik Melin, Sarah Nolan, Robert Purcell, Thomasin Renshaw and Ross Williamson. They were accompanied by Stephen Boyle, Peter Thomas and Seppo Mattila (a student on the 1998 trip, now a postgraduate at Imperial College). The number of clear nights was 5 out of 7.

The following 9 students blazed the trail between UCL and OHP in 1998: Jamie Dawson, Barbara Ercolano, Brian Jackson, Ashley James, Mohammed Khalesi, Jane Mather, Seppo Mattila, Matthew Pinto and Paul Wooldridge. They studied emission lines from active galaxies and the light curves of cataclysmic variable stars. Matt Harris assisted Stephen Boyle with this year's trip. The number of clear nights was 6 out of 6.

Stephen J. Boyle
Organiser, Course 3332
Telephone (direct line): 020 8238 8878
sjb@ulo.ucl.ac.uk