Sixth NAIC/NRAO School on Single Dish Radio Astronomy

Green Bank, West Virginia

10 – 16 July, 2011
Sponsored by NRAO, NAIC, NSF
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Sunday, July 10 0800 - 0900 Breakfast
0900 - 1200 Conference Registration
1200 - 1300 Lunch
1300 - 1315 School Practicalities
1315 - 1330 Welcome to Green Bank/An Overview of the GBT - K. O'Neil
1330 - 1430 Science Highlights from the Arecibo and Green Bank Telescopes - J. Lockman, NRAO and C. Salter, NAIC
1430 - 1530 An Introduction to Radio Astronomy Essentials - J. Condon, NRAO
Includes an overall description of the basic ideas of radio astronomy, such as wavelengths, atmosphere, etc
1530 - 1600 Coffee Break
IDL Q&A session for beginners
1600 - 1700 Tracing the Signal down the Telescope - R. Maddalena, NRAO
1700 - 1730 The Hands-On Projects; Organization and Logistics
1730 - 1900 Dinner with Hands-on teams for strategy planning
1900 - 0000 Hands-On Observing with the 40ft telescope
Monday, July 11 0730 - 0830 Breakfast
0830 - 0930 Fundamentals of Single-Dish Radio Astronomy, Part I - S. Ransom
Radiation Fundamentals
0930 - 1030 Fundamentals of Single-Dish Radio Astronomy, Part II - J. Condon
Antennas and Radiometers (from a single-dish perspective)
1030 - 1045 Coffee Break
1045 - 1230 GBT Tours and discussion, in four groups (45 minutes each)
GBT telescope tour
Machine shop tour
Control room and electronics lab tour and discussion
Science and observing discussion
Arecibo remote observing
1230 - 1330 Lunch
1330 - 1430 GBT Tours and discussion, in four groups (45 minutes each), continued
GBT telescope tour
Machine shop tour
Control room and electronics lab tour and discussion
Science and observing discussion (including Arecibo remote observing)
1430 - 1530 A CASA Primer - J. Ott, NRAO
A primer on the use of CASA, particularly in single dish mode
1515 - 1530 Coffee Break
1530 - 1630 Spectral lines - D.J. Pisano, WVU
Includes spectral lines, recombination lines, radiative transfer, and molecular, and atomic sources
1630-1730 Pulsars - S. Ransom, NRAO
Pulsar properties, searching and timing pulsars, small amount on time domain astronomy generally
1730 - 1900 Dinner
1900 - 0000 Hands-On Observing with the GBT, Arecibo, and 40ft
Tuesday, July 12 0730 - 0830 Breakfast
0830 - 0930 Continuum - B. Mason, NRAO
An overview of thermal and non-thermal emission, observing issues (confusion, gain fluctuation)
0930 - 1030 Polarization - C. Heiles, University of California, Berkeley
Includes Zeeman splitting, linear polarization, Stokes parameters, beam squint/squash, and Mueller matrices
1030 - 1130 Coffee Break and RFI demo and tour of the anachoic chamber - W. Sizemore, NRAO and C. Beaudet, NRAO
1130 - 1200 Frequency Management - K. O'Neil, NRAO
Spectrum allocation, radio quiet zones and coordination zones
1200 - 1230 RFI Excision techniques - R. Fisher, NRAO
Overview of techniques available for RFI excision
1230 - 1330 Lunch
1330 - 1415 Receivers types and uses - S. White, NRAO
An overview of receiver types - single feeds, traditional arrays, phased arrays, and bolometers
1415 - 1515 The atmosphere, including weather - R. Maddalena, NRAO
Including the effects of the atmosphere on observations, ionospheric effects, refraction, opacity, wind-induced pointing errors, frequency-dependence of absorption, and anomalous refraction
1515 - 1530 Coffee Break
1530 - 1630 Signal Processing and FPGA Architecture - A. Roshi, NRAO and P. Demorest, NRAO
Signal Processing basics from the hardware perspective; GUPPI as a basis for FPGA architecture
1630 - 1730 The LMT - P. Schleorb, University of Massachusettes
Brief overview of the Large Millimeter Telescope
1730 - 1900 Dinner
1900 - 0000 Hands-On Observing with GBT and Arecibo
Wednesday, July 13 0730 - 0830 Breakfast
0830 - 0930 Planetary Radar - M. Nolan, NAIC
0930 - 1030 Calibration and Data reduction techniques at cm through mm wavelengths - K. O'Neil
Basic techniques, including position switching, frequency switching, finding your "off" in a map
1030 - 1045 Coffee Break
1045 - 1130 Observing Extended Sources - J. Lockman, NRAO
Includes stray radiation
1130 - 1230 Short Spacing Corrections from a Single-Dish Perspective - J. Ott, NRAO
Combining synthesis and single dish data
1230 - 1330 Lunch
1330 - 1730 Hands-On Projects; Data reduction
1730 - 1900 Dinner
1900 - 2100 After dinner drinks and free time
Thursday, July 14 0730 - 0830 Breakfast
0830 - 0915 Radio Transients - M. McLaughlin, WVU
0915 - 1000 Radio telescopes from the software perspective - M. Clark, NRAO
1000 - 1030 Online tools for Astronomers - D. Frayer, NRAO
1030 - 1045 Coffee break
1045 - 1230 Hands-On Projects - Data reduction
1230 - 1330 Lunch
1330 - 1530 Hands-On Projects - Data reduction
1530 - 1630 Coffee chat with the experts (hardware, software engineer and an astronomer) in three groups
1630 - 1715 Astrobiology - T. Remijan, NRAO
Friday, July 15 0730 - 0830 Breakfast
0900 - 0930 Writing Effective Telescope Proposals - C. Salter, NAIC
Using Arecibo as the example
0930 - 0945 GBT proposal specifics - T. Minter, NRAO
0945 - 1015 Observing with coherent detector arrays - R. Minchin, NAIC
1015 - 1045 Observing with bolometer arrays - B. Mason, NRAO
1045 - 1100 Coffee Break
1100 - 1200 ALMA as a Total Power Telescope - A. Wootten, NRAO
1200 - 1230 Hands-on project preparation
1230 - 1330 Lunch
1330 - 1430 Hands-on project preparation/load talks!!!
1430 - 1530 Hands-on Presentations (5-min talks)
1530 - 1545 Coffee Break
1545 - 1645 Hands-on Presentations (5-min talks)
1645 - 1730 Closing Thoughts - The Future of Radio Astronomy -
1730 - 2130 Outdoor barbeque with guest speaker and awarding of certificates - M. Devlin, University of Pennsylvania
Saturday, July 16 0730 - 0830 Breakfast
0900 - on Local activity and participants Depart