Introduction

These pages contain additional resources for AST4310. In particular, instructions on how to set up Python for the mandatory assignments. Please read carefully to make sure you understand the background materials, what is expected from this assignment, and the necessary software to run it.

Visualisations

Some of the visualisations we'll run on class will be available on Binder, an online notebook service. With Binder, you can run Jupyter notebooks from the cloud, without having the packages installed in your computer. Try one of the available repositories:

  • Line formation on a homogeneous slab Binder
  • Line formation on a 1D model atmosphere Binder

Alternatively, if you have jupyterlab and bqplot, you can also clone the visualisation repository from Github.

Software for assignments

The assignments are a mix of computational tasks and interpretation of the physics. They should be written as Jupyter notebooks with the code in Python. While it is possible to complete most tasks using different programming languages, the choice of Python is to simplify the tasks. To encourage good scientific practices, your report should be in the form of a Jupyter notebook, and you need to use Jupyterlab or the Jupyter notebook.

You will need the following software:

More details on obtaining and installing these packages can be found in the Preparation section.