Recent Talks

Lecture 2:
- Oscillations, pulsations and seismology
- Transits and Eclipses

Lecture 1: Fourier theory
- Continuous and discrete Fourier Transform
- Power spectra
- Window carpentry
- FFT

Lecture 2: HTRA: Current technologies
- X-ray: RXTE to ASTROSAT, Chandra, XMM, NuSTAR
- optical/IR: EMCCDs, APDs, MCP-based systems
- UV: HST, Galex

Lecture 2: Radiation processes:
- Cyclo-synchrotron
- Curvature radiation
- Compton
- Bremstrahlung
- Electron/positron pair production and annihilation

Lecture 2: ULTRASPEC
- An introduction to EMCCDs
- Instrumentation for high-speed spectroscopy: ULTRASPEC on the ESO 3.6m and NTT
- Instrumentation for high-speed photometry II: ULTRASPEC on the TNT

Lecture 1:
- Timescales across the HR diagram
- Key (optical) properties of compact objects
- Compact binary systems & accretion variability

Lecture 1: ULTRACAM
- High time-resolution astrophysics (HTRA) - what is it and why study it?
- The detection of light - an introduction to CCDs
- Instrumentation for high-speed photometry I: ULTRACAM
- ULTRACAM: science highlights

Lecture 1: HTRA: history across all wavelengths, with emphasis on space science technology
- From optical photographic to photoelectric photometry at ground-based observatories
- First discoveries in space at X-ray wavelengths, with rockets, then satellite surveys
- Fast timing capabiities of Uhuru, OAO-C, SAS-3, HEAO-1 - all with proportional counters
- X-ray pulsars, bursters
- use of fast timing to provide spatial resolution
- Larger collecting areas of EXOSAT, Ginga revealed QPOs, and (RXTE) MSXPs
- Early detectors for HST, EUVE

Lecture 1: Introduction to compact objects:  The sources of power
- Rotation (pulsars)
- Magnetic fields (Magnetars)
- Gravitation (basics of accretion in binary system with a compact star/BH)
- mass transfer
- accretion flows (hot vs cold) and interaction with compact star
(magnetised vs unmagnetised, hard surface vs no surface)
- Jet launching
- Thermo-nuclear (Novae/X-ray bursters)

ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, was formally dedicated on March 13, 2013. After an overview of the highlights of ALMA: Science drivers, characteristic parameters and observing modes, I will discuss some of the of the tools available to obtain images and spectra from the observations  --those you might propose and those already in the data archive. I will present a real-time demonstration of a quite generic reduction of an actual ALMA dataset obtained from the public archive, starting from the (ASDM) raw data to produce good quality, publishable images with a dynamic range that reaches ~1800 (on the strongest calibrator); although still limited by systematic effects.