Student assignment · due date set by instructor
Submit complete derivations, units, assumptions, and a short physical interpretation. Include reproducible code for multi-step calculations and show intermediate values. Cite any external catalog or data product with its release/version. Collaboration on methods is allowed; submitted derivations and prose must be your own. Corrections and resubmissions with a change log are encouraged.
At l=30 deg, v_LSR=100 km/s, R0=8.2 kpc, and Theta0=236 km/s, compute R under a flat circular rotation curve. Explain why this is not a unique heliocentric distance.
Required: derivation, units, intermediate values, uncertainty/assumption, and an interpretation that identifies what the result does not prove.
For 1200 detections over 20 deg2 at completeness 0.84, compute corrected surface density and Poisson-only uncertainty. Then include a completeness uncertainty of 0.03 by first-order propagation.
Required: derivation, units, intermediate values, uncertainty/assumption, and an interpretation that identifies what the result does not prove.
Survey A has 40-arcsec resolution and 0.5-mJy rms; survey B has 5-arcsec resolution and 1.2-mJy rms. For a 6-arcminute diffuse source, compare which survey is more likely to recover integrated emission and which better separates point sources. State why rms alone is insufficient.
Required: derivation, units, intermediate values, uncertainty/assumption, and an interpretation that identifies what the result does not prove.
OpenStax Astronomy 2e §20.2, Chapter 20 Review Question 5, and Thought Questions 25; HI4PI Collaboration (2016), DOI 10.1051/0004-6361/201629178, and Condon et al. (1998), DOI 10.1086/300337.
The numbered anchors were checked against the local OpenStax Astronomy 2e extraction; exercise numbers/page breaks can vary by edition. Before assigning through an LMS, the instructor should spot-check each recommendation against the adopted print/PDF edition. Exact source scope and extraction notes are in ../reference-log.md. Do not present the synthetic teaching records as telescope observations.
Three problems, 100 points total. Submit a PDF or HTML report plus code/notebook where requested. Show figures with axes, units, captions, and data provenance.