A series of five lectures presented at:

V Escola Avancada de Astrofisica
1989 July 30 - August 3
Aguas de Sao Pedro, Brazil

Organized by:

Beatriz Barbuy, Antonio Mario Magalhaes,
Eduardo Janot Pacheco, and Sueli Viegas-Aldrovandi
Departamento de Astronomia
Instituto Astronomico e Geofisico
Universidade de Sao Paulo

Table of Contents

• LECTURE 1: LINEAR LEAST SQUARES
• Problem 1: Fitting a straight line to simple data
• Problem 2: Unequal errors
• Problems 3 and 4: More complex equations
• SUMMARY: A GENERAL METHODOLOGY FOR LINEAR LEAST SQUARES
• A FEW MORE ADVANCED EXAMPLES
• Radioactive decay
• Parallel Lines
• Transforming coordinates
• LECTURE 2: PARAMETER ERROR ESTIMATES AND NONLINEAR LEAST SQUARES
• Parameter error estimates
• Nonlinear Least Squares
• Fitting a model profile to a star image
• Really fitting model profiles to star images
• LECTURE 3: TWO TIMES WHEN THE COOKBOOK ISN'T ENOUGH
• Errors in several coordinates
• Non-Gaussian error distributions
• LECTURE 4: STELLAR PHOTOMETRY WITH CCDs - FITS GALORE
• FIND
• APERTURE PHOTOMETRY AND SKY DETERMINATION
• PROFILE MODELLING
• PROFILE FITTING - ALLSTAR
• LECTURE 5: STELLAR PHOTOMETRY WITH CCDs - AFTER THE FITS ARE OVER
• Growth curves
• Matching stars between frames
• One last fling