Astro-lab Winter term 2024/2025

Slides of the presentation on the astrolab Oct 17 2024 during the 1st lecture on "Introduction to Astronomy & astrophysics"(in German)

The preliminary list of participants

Students on the preregistration list for September/October 2025

You MUST register with your University account (Bachelor/Master students) or your institute account (PhD students). Registrations with E-mail addresses eg using gmail, gmx or other provider will _NOT_ be accepted and simply be ignored!!!

Notes on the astrolab to be held from Feb 17 - 28 2025:

  • The astrolab will be held fully in presence at the Landessternwarte on the Königstuhl.
  • More information about the astrolab in September/October 2024 can be found in a booklet circulated with the confirmation of participation here . We anticipate that the outline of the astrolab in March 2025 will be very similar.
  • The E-mail with the confirmation of participation will be mailed out by mid-January 2025. It will contain further details about the outline. If necessary, an online presentation on the outline of the astrolab will be announced.


If you have any question, please send me an E-mail at jheidt at lsw.uni-heidelberg.de
Note: As part of the astro-lab to be held from February 17 - 28 2025, observations will be carried out with the 70cm telescope of the Landessternwarte Heidelberg. Since weather is normally pretty poor in February , the observations will be performed during the lecture period in the Winter-term 2024/2025. Observing sessions are offered Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday. Since we suffered from bad weather in previous Winter seasons (mostly only a few nights of the 30 nights offered were useful) we will carry out the observations with two groups, with a maximum of 4 students each back to back. The first group at a given day is at the telescope from 16.30h - 19:15h, the second group from 19:30h - 22.15h.

The following dates in Winter 2024/2025 are offered:

Date Start Observer Weather Assistant
4. 11. 16:30h Kaps, Schuhmacher, von den Berken, Grote clear Sattler
4. 11. 19:30h Peschka, Plank, Reilecke, Kantseva clear Sattler
5. 11. 16:30h Kordt, Lehmen, Tan, Zipfel foggy Sattler
5. 11. 19:30h Mack, Vonderau, Wiggers, Xu foggy Sattler
6. 11. 16:30h Junker, Messerschmidt, Spiller, Winkler clouds/foggy Sattler
6. 11. 19:30h Hutschenreuter, Lenz, Schorsch, Stetson clouds/foggy Sattler
11. 11. 16:30h Grote, Mack, Tan, Vonderau clouds/foggy Sattler
11. 11. 19:30h Belschner, Breite, Kantseva, Winkler rain Sattler
12. 11. 16:30h Junker, Lehmen, Stähle, Zipfel clouds Sattler
12. 11. 19:30h Breite, Stetson, Wiggers, Xu clouds Sattler
13. 11. 16:30h Hutschenreuter, Lenz, Schorsch, Spiller rain Sattler
13. 11. 19:30h Fichtelmann, Messerschmidt rain Sattler
18. 11. 16:30h Bockemühl-Simon, Fichtelmann, Kordt, Legien rain Sattler
18. 11. 19:30h Kantseva, Junker, Wiggers, Xu rain Sattler
19. 11. 16:30h Hopstein, Krieger, Mik, Rudolf rain Sattler
19. 11. 19:30h Lehmen, Stetson, Stähle, Zipfel rain Sattler
20. 11. 16:30h Belschner, Breite, Spiller, Winkler cloudy Sattler
20. 11. 19:30h Hutschenreuter, Lenz, Messerschmidt, Schorsch cloudy Sattler
25. 11. 16:30h Grote, Mack, Tan, Vonderau rain Sattler
25. 11. 19:30h Kantseva,Junker,Wiggers,Xu rain Sattler
26. 11. 16:30h Bockemühl-Simon,Lehmen,Legien,Zipfel rain Sattler
26. 11. 19:30h Fichtelmann,Hopstein,Rudolf,Stetson cloudy Sattler
27. 11. 16:30h Belschner, Breite,Messerschmidt,Winkler cloudy Sattler
27. 11. 19:30h Krieger,MikSpiller,Stähle cloudy Sattler
2. 12. 16:30h Legien,Mack,Tan,Vonderau rain Sattler
2. 12. 19:30h Hutschenreuter,Kordt,Lenz,Schorsch rain Sattler
9. 12. 16:30h Grote,Junker,Krieger,Mik cloudy Sattler
9. 12. 19:30h Kantseva,Lehmen,Xu,Zipfel cloudy Sattler
10. 12. 16:30h Breite,Hopstein,Rudolf,Stähle cloudy Sattler
10. 12. 19:30h Breitschopf,Bockemühl-Simon,Fichtelmann,Stetson cloudy Sattler
11. 12. 16:30h Belschner,Schorsch,Spiller,Winkler cloudy Sattler
11. 12. 19:30h Hutschenreuter, Lenz, Mack, Vonderau cloudy Sattler
16. 12. 16:30h Kordt, Mack,Tan,Vonderau cloudy Sattler
16. 12. 19:30h Grote,Junker,Krieger,Mik cloudy Sattler
17. 12. 16:30h Breite,Fichtelmann,Hutschenreuter, Lenz, Schorsch cloudy Sattler
17. 12. 19:30h Kantseva, Lehmen, Zipfel,Xu cloudy Sattler
18. 12. 16:30h Belschner,Bockemühl-Simon,Spiller,Stähle,Winkler cloudy Sattler
18. 12. 19:30h Breitschopf, Hopstein,Rudolf,Stetson cloudy Sattler

HowTo: Pls. register online for the astrolab as detailed below. Then pls. indicate via a GOOGLE spreadsheet all dates, where you would be available for an observing evening. Based on the number of participants and their availability, we will then build groups with a maximum of 4 observers with fixed dates for the observations. At the day of the observations you are scheduled for, you will receive an E-mail from the assistant in charge between 13h and 14h. He will let you know if observations will take place or not! Registration is now open with the observations starting on October 28. On October 24 the first assignment of observing nights can be found on that page. It will be updated every Thursday.

You can also register at a later stage. Once the first round of scheduled observations is over, new dates for the unsuccessfull students/groups will be defined as well as observing dates for the participants who have registered later on. The assignment of the dates will always been made based on the entries in the GOOGLE spreadsheet.

The assistant for the observations is Natascha Sattler or Jochen Heidt

Logistics and transportation: Meeting point for the observations is at the gate of the Landessternwarte.

If you come by car, pls. leave it just to the right hand side in front of the gate.

For the ones who require public transport to come up, Bus 39 leaving Bismarckplatz every full hour (16/19h) is recommended. Arrival at the Landessternwarte is about 25minutes later. You have to walk about 400m from the bus stop to the gate of the Landessternwarte following the sign. Alternatively you can take the Bus 30 leaving the bus stop Peterskirche at 16.28/19.28, arrival at the Landessternwarte about 12min later. Note, however, that you need to find your way to the telescope in that case.

Going down: Bus 39 leaving at 19.32h or Bus 30 leaving at 19.46h from the Landessternwarte (1st group). There is no bus running at times when the 2nd group is done with their observations. Instead the "Ruftaxi" which runs at 22.28h from the bus-stop at Landessternwarte has to be used. It needs to be called 30min in advance at 0621-1077077 for a reservation. The assistant at the 70cm telescope will take care of this. The Ruftaxi is free of charge for the ones with a "Deutschlandticket" or "JugendticketBW", otherwise it costs 1,50 Euro per ride/person.

Preparation and outline of the observations: Pls. download the script for the observations here . For the evening pls. go through the parts 1.1 and 1.2 and prepare for the observations by working on the questions. At the begin of the evening you will first get an introduction to the telescope and the CCD-camera by the assistant followed by a discussion on what you have done for the preparation of the evening. The data taken during the night will be reduced and analysed as part of the astro-lab in February/March 2024.

Pls. have warm clothes with you. It can be very cold at the Königstuhl during the night.

In case not all participants werde able to conduct their observations during the dates offered (e.g. due to bad weather), we may arrange further observing sessions in January 2025.

Observations with the 70cm telescope are voluntarily, they are not a requirement to pass the astrolab.



Registration


Astro-lab PhD students: February 17 - 28 2025

Dates: Monday, February 17 through Friday, February 21 and Monday, February 24 through Friday, February 28 2025.

Full day, starts at 8:45 AM daily



Astro-lab Master students MVAstro1 or MVSpec:

Alternatively, February 17 - 21 or Monday, February 24 - 28 2025

Full day, starts at 8:45 AM daily



Astro-lab Bachelor students WPAstro3:

Alternatively, February 17 - 21 or Monday, February 24 - 28 2025

Full day, starts at 8:45 AM daily




  • Location: Landesternwarte Heidelberg
  • Organized by: Prof. Dr. J. Heidt and Prof. Dr. A. Quirrenbach

    • Registration required!

    • Ms Wright, LSW Heidelberg, Tel: 06221 - 541781 or online (preferred). If the former, please provide address, phone number and course (PhD, Bachelor or Master). In case of Bachelor or Master, pls. provide also the week preferred and matrikel number. If you are from a different faculty, please provide this information in the "additional remarks" section.

  • Further information:

  • Procedure: There is no special preparation for the astro-lab required. Altogether 10 tasks will be offered. An introduction to the tasks and an outline of the astrolab in autumn 2024 can be found in this document. During the one-week astro-lab about 2-4, during the 2-week astro-lab about 6-8 tasks shall be worked on in groups of two (scripts will be given on site or be made downloadable from the WEB). Individual tasks will be assigned by the organizers. Once a task is completed by an individual group, it will be discussed with one of the responsible assistants. There is no need for a written summary or any homework.

  • Literature: It would be useful to bring your own textbooks, e.g.
  • Schneider: Extragalactic astronomy and cosmology
  • Shu: The Physical Universe, University Science Books

  • Very useful: Bring your own notebook for working on the tasks and/or searches in the internet (WLAN/DHCP available). For the data reduction as part of Tasks 1 and 11 dedicated notebooks are available. Knowledge of SW-tools like Origin, Excel or Gnuplot to e.g. fit functions to data would be an asset.

  • Due to space constraints the number of participants is limited to 40 students per week.

    The dates for the next astrolab during the Summer term 2025 are from September 22 - 26 and from October 6 - 10. If you prefer to take part during this period, send me an E-Mail. You will be put on a pre-registration list and be informed and allowed to register for that event before it is made public. Your participation will be guaranteed!

    Maintained by Jochen Heidt
    Last modified: 2. 10. 2024