Eagle-Eye Astronomy

This is not a general public astronomy course: it focuses on a specific type of astronomical observation that is required when one needs high angular resolution information. The intended audience primarily consists of first or second year's Master's degree students with an interest in astronomy and/or astronomical instrumentation. Others, with a background in engineering should also feel quite comfortable.

At a tactical level, students should be familiar with complex numbers (used to describe electromagnetic waves), Taylor expansions (used to approximate and simplify complex equations) and have a basic understanding of statistics (mean, standard deviation).

Interferometry specialists are said to live in the "Fourier space": the Fourier Transform is a tool that indeed proves central to the course. While it will be introduced again and covered during this course, a preliminary understanding of what it is and how it works (at least in the 1-dimensional case) would prove useful.

Frantz Martinache
Maître de conférence à l'Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur