Astro README.md

• This is a collection of very good intro-level notes/lectures/manuals that cover a broad range of topics. Although it is not possible to read all of them before you do research, but it is helpful to know they exist.

Online or Free Textbook

• AstroBaki
  • AstroBaki is a wiki for current and aspiring scientists to collaboratively build pedagogical materials such as videos, lecture notes, and textbooks.
• Open Astrophysics Bookshelf
  • Open Licensed Astrophysics Texts; Open for Contributions. Now includes:
  • Computational Hydrodynamics for Astrophysics
  • Notes on Star Formation by Mark Krumholz
  • Astrophysical Processes Notes
  • Introduction to Stellar Astrophysics for Undergraduate
  • Stellar Astrophysics for Graduate Student
• ISM and Star Formation based on Harvard Astronomy 201B
  • Jointly-Edited Online “Book”, first created in 2011 by Prof. Alyssa Goodman, Teaching Fellow Chris Beaumont, and the 21 Harvard graduate students who took the course at that time.

User Manual for Astronomer

• Below is a list of (relative short) manual, guide, tutorial on some specific but important topics in astrophysical research. You don’t need to read all of them (although you are encouraged to do so…), but you should know they are available.

Math, Oh Math…

• The Matrix Cookbook
  • Quick desktop reference on everything related to matrix.
• Fisher Matrices and Confidence Ellipses: A Quick-Start Guide and Software
  • Also see Fisher Matrix for Beginners
  • And A Tutorial on Fisher Information
• Statistical uncertainty and error propagation
  • Quick summary of statistical error propagation.
• Dimensionality Reduction A Short Tutorial

Data Analysis

• A Beginner’s Guide to Working with Astronomical Data
  • Basics about astronomical data analysis using Python.
• Astronomical Spectroscopy
  • by Philp Massey and Margaret Hanson. Very good introduction about the spectroscopic instrument and data reduction.
• Dos and don’ts of reduced chi-squared
  • By Rene Andrae, Tim Schulze-Hartung, & Peter Melchior.
• On Model Selection in Cosmology

Data Analysis Recipes by David Hogg

• The GitHub repo for this book is here
• Data analysis recipes: Choosing the binning for a histogram
• Data analysis recipes: Fitting a model to data
  • This is really worth reading
• Data analysis recipes: Probability calculus for inference
• Data analysis recipes: Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo

Cosmology

• Distance measures in cosmology by David Hogg
• Exploring the Expansion History of the Universe by Eirc Linder
• Damn You, Little h! by Darren Croton
  • The published version is here
  • This is a really useful note. little-h can be really tricky!
  • Also see this conversion table by Ivan Baldry
• Dark Matter Halo Mass Profiles
  • Notes on basic NFW and Einasto profiles.