Imaging and Spectroscopy Lab

Catalog description

This course focuses on modern instrumentation for the UV, optical and infrared imaging and spectroscopy. We will cover the principles of operation of CCD and CMOS detectors, diffraction grating spectrographs, including their design and applications. Students will gain hands-on experience in data acquisition, processing, calibration and analysis. A comprehensive understanding of advanced imaging and spectroscopic technologies would allow students to contribute to research projects in a great variety of scientific or engineering fields. For the Physics students with specialization in Astronomy, this course will cover topics specific to modern space-based and ground-based telescopes. The lab exercises will include examples of imaging and spectroscopy applications in astronomy with emphasis on low signal to noise data. However, the course material is broader in scope and the data acquisition, reduction and analysis skills the students will gain are transferable skills for imaging and spectroscopy in general.