Ay 7 - Introduction to Amateur Astronomy and Astrophotography

Intended for first-year undergraduate students, this hands-on astronomy course takes place exclusively during a weekly evening session where students operate amateur-class telescopes from Caltech campus. Students will learn and gain intuition for the night sky, and will learn to align and operate small, portable telescopes to find, sketch, and calculate properties of planets and deep-sky objects. Students will also learn to operate astrophotography cameras, and will obtain and process data to produce high-quality astronomical images. The class will occasionally have a brief lecture component to support the telescope work, which will also take place during the scheduled evening sessions. Not offered 2025-26.