Welcome to the CTA200H course!
This course is for summer undergraduates performing research in astrophysics at University of Toronto, including but not limited to participants in UofT's CITA Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) and David A Dunlap Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP). The goal is to provide training to help students be successful with the computation aspects of their summer research program.
The course will run every afternoon from 1:00pm to 5:00p, from Monday May 4 to Thursday May 14. This 4-hour block will be split into two hours of lecture followed by two hours of tutorial time, in which students will work on their course homework.
Location: The course will be held in person in MP257. Access to CITA computers will be done via VNC Remote Desktop or SSH.
- Course coordinator: Bart Ripperda (ripperda at cita dot utoronto dot ca)
- TA: Alicia Savelli (alicia dot savelli at utoronto dot ca)
- Lecturers:
- Bart Ripperda
- Guest lecturers:
- Sebastiano von Fellenberg
- Vittoria Berta
- Rohan Dahale
- Koushik Chatterjee
- Vera Delfavero
This is a list of dates and topics for the course (subject to change):
| Date | Instructor | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Mon May 4 | Vera | Using the CITA Systems, Linux and Git |
| 2. Tues May 5 | Bart | Python Language Intro and Workflow |
| 3. Wed May 6 | Bart | Structuring Your Projects |
| 4. Thurs May 7 | Bart | Numerical Computing |
| 5. Fri May 8 | Bart | Data IO/Data Manipulation |
| 6. Mon May 11 | Vittoria | Finite Volume Methods |
| 7. Tues May 12 | Sebastiano | Using Astropy |
| 8. Wed May 13 | Vera | Statistical Methods |
| 9. Thurs May 14 | Rohan | Machine Learning and Computational Imaging |
The mark will be determined on the basis of two items:
| Item | Weight |
|---|---|
| 1. Homework: | 50% |
| 2. Project: | 50% |
In the first week students will work on homework problems related to the first week's lectures. For the second week they will work on a week-long project that will be closely related to the research they do for the rest of the summer. They will hand in their results for this project at the end of the course.
The problem set will be divided into three smaller assignments to be handed in every couple of days.
- Assignment 1 Due by 1PM May 6th
- Assignment 2 Due by 11:59PM May 8th
- Assignment 3 Due by 1PM May 12th
In the second week students will work on a project supplied either by their supervisor or the instructor. The project is due by 5PM on Tuesday May 19th 2026.
To download all course material to your computer:
git clone git@github.com:CITA/CTA200H.git