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Astronomy and Astrophysics Honours Courses 2008

Important Dates

1st semester 2008: February - June

2nd Semester 2008: July - October

Please note that some of the 1st semester honours courses may run slightly into the semester break.

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HONOURS COURSE WORK RULES

1. 50% of the honours assessment in Astronomy & Astrophysics is for a research project.
2. Students are required to do 24 points of coursework for the other 50% of their honours assessment.
3. Up to 24 points (in 6 point quanta) are to be selected from the list below.
4. ASTR 3002, ASTR3007 and GEOL 3022 may be taken if not already taken as a third year subject.
5. Some courses (e.g. Diffuse Matter in the Universe, High Energy Astrophysics, Astrophysical gas Dynamics) may be given in alternate years.
6. A student who misses these courses in 4th year may take them as a graduate course in the following year.
7. Additional 6 cp units may be selected from suitable units in Physics or Maths subject to approval by the Astronomy & Astrophysics Honours Convenor. Possible examples include: A unit from the Honours Physics program. One of the Computational Modelling units in the Bachelor of Computational Science Honours Program. One of the units in the Mathematics Honours program
8. For the Honours degree, students have to take 5 courses in total. This can be either all five courses offered by RSAA (see below) or equivalent honours courses from Geology, Physics or Maths.

A minimum of three courses offered by RSAA have to be taken.

Course work counts 50% towards the final honours mark. The Honours thesis has a 50% weight.

Honours Courses 2008 as pdf file

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HONOURS COURSES

NOTE: Only those courses marked with an asterisk (*) will be offered in 2008

* Diffuse Matter in the Universe - 3CP

Taught by Mike Dopita

1st Semester: start on Thursday 21 Feb at 11:00am. Lectures between 11:00 and 12:30 each Tuesday and Thursday from then on. That should have us finishing in mid-April.

Venue: Woolley Seminar Room, RSAA

Assessment:

• 25% based on attendance
• 25% based on assignments
• 25% based on a research essay
• 25% based upon a 15 +5 min presentation of the results of the research essay.

The essay will be 5-10pp, and is based upon an appropriate literature search. It may be on ANY aspect of the Interstellar Medium. This can be started by the students immediately, but is handed in at the end of the course. Presentation of material based upon an Honours Project is not allowed.

From this work the students will also make an oral presentation to their peer group, which should enlighten and instruct the group on what they have found out. The group will be able to vote on how well this worked for them, and I will use these voting results in the assessment.

The purpose of this heavy weighting on the self-driven research is to develop and home the skills that will be needed, should the students go on to a PhD course in any field.

The course is contained within Dopita & Sutherland, Springer ISBN 3-540-43362-7: "Astrophysics of the Diffuse Universe" (which is also the title of the course). Students are encouraged to acquire a copy of this, and to read the chapters covered by the course.

For more details, contact

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* Stellar Evolution, Pulsation and Nucleosynthesis - 3CP

Lecturers: Stefan Keller, Amanda Karakas and Peter Wood

1st Semester 2008

Assessment

There will be 3 assignment sheets. Course marks will be based solely on the three assignments.

Course content

The course will consist of a series of about 9-10 lectures and 2-3 tutorials. The lectures will be shared approximately equally between Stefan Keller (Stellar Evolution), Amanda Karakas (Nucleosynthesis) and Peter Wood (Stellar Pulsation). Lectures will mostly be on Friday mornings at 9.30-10.30 and 11.30-12.30. Due to Easter and the GMT meeting, I propose that one pair of lectures will be on Wednesday 19 March (negotiable if this causes a timetable clash).

Web site

Information and the assignments are available here

Lecture dates, times and places

Date	Times	Place
Friday 29 Feb	9.30am and 11.30am	Duffield Lecture Theatre
Friday 7 Mar	9.30am and 11.30am	Duffield Lecture Theatre
Friday 14 Mar	9.30am and 11.30am	Duffield Lecture Theatre
Wednesday 19 Mar	9.30am and 11.30am	Duffield Lecture Theatre
Friday 21 Mar		Easter Friday
Friday 28 Mar		GMT Meeting
Friday 4 Apr	9.30am and 11.30am	Duffield Lecture Theatre
Friday 11 Apr	9.30am and 11.30am	CSO Common Room

Completion dates

All assignments should be handed in by Wednesday 30 April.

For more details, contact

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* Galaxy Dynamics (Part of ASTR3002) - 3CP

Taught by Helmut Jerjen

First half of 2nd Semester

Times and Venue: TBD, for venue details click ASTR3002 website

Assessment: assignments

Syllabus: Galaxies: classification and dynamics. luminous matter and dark matter in galaxies. Text book: Galaxy Dynamics (Binney & Tremaine)

For details, contact Ken Freeman

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* Cosmology (Part of ASTR3002) - 3CP

Taught by Brian Schmidt

Second half of 2nd Semester

Times and Venue: TBD, for venue details click ASTR3002 website

Assessment: assignments

Syllabus: The expanding universe and cosmological models.

For details, contact Brian Schmidt

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Stellar Astrophysics and Dynamics (ASTR3007) - 6CP

Taught by Lilia Ferrario

1st Semester 2008

Times and Venue: ASTR3007 website

Assessment: For details, contact Lilia Ferrario

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* Observational Techniques - 3CP

Taught by Paul Francis

1st semester 2008

Time: TBD

Venue: Duffield lecture Theater or Woolley seminar room.

Assessment: TBD

Timetable and Syllabus

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* Planetary Geology (GEOL3022) - 6CP

Taught by Prof Richard Arculus and Dr Trevor Ireland from the Department of Earth and Marine Sciences

2nd semester 2008

For all details (starting date, venue, assessment etc.) see the webpage of GEOL3022 or contact Prof Richard Arculus

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Utility Courses

These short (2-8 lectures) courses are NOT part of the Honours program but shall help honours students with Unix, LaTeX, BibTex, Literature Review, Writing, etc.. They are regularly offered by the Graduate Information Literacy Program at ANU. Please see their webpages for more information.

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RSAA Honours Convenor: