Southampton Astronomy Group

Postgraduate Lecture Course


A variety of activities are provided for Year 1 postgraduate astronomy students, designed to give a general introduction to the astronomy PhD.

The key components of this course are:
These activities occur throughout the first year. Second (or third) year postgraduates are welcome to attend the courses again if they wish.

Undergraduate Courses

The only mandatory undergraduate material for year 1 postgraduates is the PHYS 3011 - Photons in Astrophysics undergraduate lecture course (Semester ; Mon 1pm (double), Weds 10am). This course gives a general introduction to photon production and detection processes for all wavebands from radio to gamma-ray. The instrumentation used in each waveband is also described. 

Postgraduates may also attend all or part of any of the school undergraduate courses. Of particular relevance may be:

PHYS1005 - Intro to Astronomy and Space Science
PHYS2010 - Life in the Cosmos
PHYS2013 - Galaxies
PHYS3006 - Computer Techniques in Physics
PHYS3010 - Stellar evolution
PHYS3011 - Photons in Astrophysics
PHYS6005 - Cosmology

Postgraduates are also encouraged to attend, or view the online notes for these courses. Course information and on-line notes are available via the school's teaching web page

Astronomy Techniques Self-Teaching Module

During the first semester, students should attempt one self-taught module per week (apart from the statistics module, which is 2 weeks).

Each module consists of a set of notes, which should be read, and in some cases a series of exercises. Any problems should then be discussed with the module co-ordinator.

Module 1 Introduction to computer systems Tony Bird Notes
Module 2 Overview of programming languages Tony Bird Notes
Module 3 (2 weeks) Statistical methods Christian Knigge Notes
Module 4 Techniques for storing and handling astronomical data - FITS files Tony Bird Notes
Module 5 X-ray spectroscopy Tom Maccarone Notes
Module 6 Timing analysis Malcolm Coe Notes
Module 7 Writing a scientific paper Christian Kaiser Notes
Module 8 Using INTEGRAL Tony Bird Notes

Note that this page also contains an 'experts' list, which you can use to identify other people you can go and ask about various topics.

Astronomy Postgraduate Lectures

These lectures occur in the second semester, at a rate of one per week. A timetable will be posted here after the Christmas break. Several of these topics may span more than one lecture.
  1. Accretion onto compact objects - theory and observation (Rob Fender)
  2. Stellar evolution (Tony Dean, 2 lectures)
  3. Low mass X-ray binaries (Phil Charles (TBC))
  4. High mass X-ray binaries (Malcolm Coe)
  5. Neutron stars and X-ray bursters (Tom Maccarone)
  6. Cataclysmic variables (Christian Knigge)
  7. Galaxies (Tom Maccarone)
  8. Galaxy clusters (Christian Kaiser)
  9. AGN - general intro (Christian Kaiser)
  10. AGN variability (Ian McHardy)
  11. Jet Physics (Rob Fender)
  12. Deep X-ray surveys (Ian McHardy)
  13. Weighing super-massive black holes
  14. Gamma-ray bursts (TBC)

Reading list

These are recommended reviews on various topics, which would be a good starting point on their topics. Initials in brackets are where to find copies of them (HL = Hartley Library)

"Accretion Power in Astrophysics" by Frank, King and Raine "Active Galactic Nuclei" by Ian Robson (HL, CRK, IMH)

"Beams and Jets in Astrophysics" ed. Hughes (CRK)

"Classification of Stars" by Jaschek & Jaschek "Data reduction and error analysis for the physical sciences" by Bevington and Robinson "High Energy Astrophysics" by Malcolm Longair (HL, most offices!)

"Latex2e users guide" by Lamport "Numerical Recipes" by Press et al. (several copies around for F77, C, C++ versions)
"Radiative Processes in Astrophysics" by Rybicki and Lightman (HL, CRK, IMH, MJC)

"X-ray binaries" by Lewin, van Paradijs and van del Heuvel

A note written by Malcolm Coe on "Use of online resources, databases, catalogs etc"

The 'experts' list

If you're stuck with something, there will almost certainly be someone around who claims to be an expert on the subject. The following people have volunteered to provide support in the following subject areas.

This page maintained by the course co-ordinators, Tony Bird and Phil Uttley. Any queries, questions or complaints to them.

Finally, and importantly, thanks to all the folks giving up their time to provide the lectures!