Astrophysics is a study of everything
that exists in the universe, from
smallest quantum scales to the largest.
Some of the work we do is taking and
interpreting astronomical images. These
images are reduced by subtracting the bias
- which tells us about the noise of
the image - and dividing by the flap
- which tells us about the response of the image.
By doing this we are able to obtain
reduced images of our targets.
I personally study star clusters in
order to find out what they are made of
and when they were born.
I picked this course because I wanted to
do astrophysics from around GCSE level
and then came to Lancaster on a visit and
fell in love with both campus and the course.
What's really great about this
course is that students get the
opportunity to get involved very early
on with state-of-the-art data and
research, and they're being taught
by the world experts in their areas.
My first year at university was a common year
where everyone studies the same physics and maths
This just reinforced my love
for astrophysics and since then I've
gone on to build on those core modules
in my specialism. My biggest sense of
achievement since studying at university
it has been when we went to La Palma
to use the Isaac Newton telescope to
observe. The images we took there we used
on a mug to promote Physics for
Lancaster. There's really a lot I love
about teaching in this course, mostly the
interaction with students the open-door
policy but also being able to actually
bring a lot of the research I do into
the lectures and involving students with
research as early as possible.
