Data Analysis for Astronomy and Physics

Msc and BSc course, Cologne University, I. Physical Institute, 2015

The lecture introduces the basic aspects of data analysis and the application of statistical methods to data in astronomy and other physical sciences.

The course covers the following topics: Descriptive statistics, uncertainties and errors, error propagation, probability distributions, statistical inference, data smoothing, interpolation, regression, multivariate analysis, least-squares fitting, correlation analysis, hypothesis testing, correlation and testing fits. We will also cover practical aspects, such as plotting and presenting data, data formats, and work with real data. If time allows additional topics like image processing, astronomical data reduction, and others.

The course will often use real astronomical data or applications from astronomy, but the contents of the course are of course applicable to all physical sciences.

New: We will also cover some basic techniques of machine learning in this course.