The Frequently Asked Question

lectures

As listed in class schedules; consult subject description in MIT Bulletin.

Lecture attendance is strongly encouraged, since you'll be responsible for all material presented in the lectures.
 

observing lab

(Class schedules were supposed to have said ``additional lab hours at Wallace Observatory to be arranged'' but sometimes that doesn't make it in)

Attending your observing lab session is required!

The nighttime observing sections meet weekly starting the first full week of classes and run until approximately mid-November. Observing lab section assignments will be based on the schedule information participants turn in at the first lecture meeting.

• Sessions on sufficiently clear nights are conducted at MIT's Wallace Astrophysical Observatory in Westford, MA and last about 7hr each (2hr round-trip travel time, 4hr for actual data collection, and 1hr of setup/takedown for observing).
• Sessions on nights too cloudy for observing are conducted indoors on campus and last 2hr.

Our working assumption is that, on average, a given lab section will have 4 observing sessions and 4 indoors sessions during the 8-week observing segment of the semester. But obviously because of the uncertainty of the weather there's no way to know ahead-of-time how many nights observing will actually be possible, or when they'll occur.

The departure time for an observing session will vary somewhat depending on the particular requirements of the section's observing programs, and whether we're on Daylight Time or Standard Time. In general sessions will tend to start later when we begin observing in September and then get earlier until we finish observing by mid-November.

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Last modified 2001 Aug 19