Welcome
Welcome to the canvas information page for the course
ASTM28: Dynamical Astronomy, 7.5 credits
given by the Department of Astronomy and Theoretical Physics.
Note: this page contains general information about the course. If you are a student on the course you have to log in to the canvas portal to the left. The course calendar and course stream on this page are not active.
GaiasFirstSkyMap.png Download GaiasFirstSkyMap.png
Contents
The course contains ...
- Newtonian gravitation and dynamics.
- Reference systems and units.
- Galactic coordinates.
- Astrometry and the determination of the distances, motions and distribution of stars.
- The HR diagram and the colours, luminosities and ages of stars.
- Stellar kinematics.
- Circular motions.
- The motion of the sun and the local velocity standard.
- The rotation curve, differential Galactic rotation and Oort's constants.
- Force, potential, and Poisson’s equation.
- Non-circular motions.
- The potential of the Galaxy and Galactic orbits.
- Statistical description of distributions and motions.
- The phase space, collisionless Boltzmann equation and Jeans' equations.
- Applications of the Jeans equations to dynamical determination of masses and
mass density.
General information
- Semester: autumn
- Study period: 2
- Level: master
- Language: English
- Form of teaching: The teaching consists of lectures, python sessions and laboratory exercises (done using the programming language 'Python').
- Assessment: In order to pass the course, you have to pass the take-home exam (details to be announced later) and hand in acceptable reports for P1, P2 and either P3 or P4. This is how the grading is done:
- Each of the problems (P1-P4) as well as the exam (E) is graded on a scale from 0 to 100%. The mean grade is calculated as
M=14(P1+P2+Pn+E)
where Pn = P3 or P4
-
- You have failed if any of P1, P2, P3 or P4, or E is < 50 (but see below how you can still pass). Otherwise, you get a "Pass" (Godkänd) if M < 75 or a "Pass with Distinction" (Väl godkänd) if M is at least 75.
- As long as you have failed, you are entitled to hand in improved versions of the failed reports, or re-do a failed home exam once.
- If you are close to receiving a "Pass with Distinction", you may also be allowed to improve the reports.
- Grading scale: U-G-VG
- Course plan: in English, in Swedish
Course literature and resources
- There is no textbook for this course. We use the compendium "Dynamical astronomy: Lecture Notes for ASTM28" (65 pages, Lund Observatory, 2021) which will be on sale at Media-Tryck (Sölvegatan 14, house I) price is 80 SEK
- Lecture notes:
- Introductory slides: 2021-11-01_intro.pdf Download 2021-11-01_intro.pdf
- Introductory information from the Director of Studies: info_introduction_meeting_ht21_2.pdf Download info_introduction_meeting_ht21_2.pdf
- Slides for lectures 1&2: DynamicalAstronomyHobbsC123.pdf Download DynamicalAstronomyHobbsC123.pdf
- Slides for lecture 3: 2021-11-12_L3.pdf Download 2021-11-12_L3.pdf
- Slides from chapter 5: DynamicalAstronomyHobbsC5.pdf Download DynamicalAstronomyHobbsC5.pdf
- Slides from chapter6 and 7: DynamicalAstronomyHobbsC67.pdf Download DynamicalAstronomyHobbsC67.pdf
- Slides for lecture 7: 2021-12-06_L7.pdf Download 2021-12-06_L7.pdf
- Slides for lecture 8: 2021-12-13_L8.pdf Download 2021-12-13_L8.pdf
- Projects and data:Project 1
- Slides for P1: 2021-11-05_P1.pdf Download 2021-11-05_P1.pdf
- Jupyter notebook for Project 0: project0.ipynb Download project0.ipynb
- Jupyter notebook for Project 1: project1.ipynb Download project1.ipynb
- Pdf file describing Project 2: astm28_P2.pdf Download astm28_P2.pdf
- Pdf file describing Project 3: astm28_P3.pdf Download astm28_P3.pdf
- Pdf file describing Project 4: astm28_P4.pdf Download astm28_P4.pdf
- Slides for P3 and P4: 2021-12-10_P34.pdf Download 2021-12-10_P34.pdf
- Routines for coordinate transformation: coordTransform.py Download coordTransform.py
- Coma cluster data for P0: Coma.vot Download Coma.vot
- Mark scheme for project write-ups: markscheme.pdf Download markscheme.pdf
- Exam questions from ASTM13 2020: ASTM13exam2020.pdf Download ASTM13exam2020.pdf
- For the projects, you will need to use Python 3 and a number of packages:
- numpy
- matplotlib
- astropy (version 4.3 or later)
- astroquery
- This course shares introductory Python sessions with ASTM21 "Statistical tools in astronomy". Resources for these sessions can be found here: https://mikkolad.github.io/lundpython/ Links to an external site.
Teachers
- Alexander Mustill (course responsible), phone: 046-22 21612
- Alexander Mustill (AM), alex@astro.lu.se
- David Hobbs (DH), david@astro.lu.se
- Eero Vaher (EV), eero.vaher@astro.lu.se – for Python issues
Schedule
The schedule for the next instance of the course can be found here.
Application
Through antagning.se Links to an external site.
Interested students who are not yet registered should contact the course responsible at alex@astro.lu.se.