Comments on: Books – a boring title http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/ Weaving together Astronomy+Statistics+Computer Science+Engineering+Intrumentation, far beyond the growing borders Fri, 01 Jun 2012 18:47:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4 By: Simon Vaughan http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/comment-page-1/#comment-294 Simon Vaughan Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:27:07 +0000 http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/#comment-294 Hyunsook, I agree entirely about the usefulness of a data repository. It would be really nice to have a range of data types (spectra, images, time series - from optical, X-ray, radio etc.) in common formats, from real observations of different sources, that can be used to demonstrate with or experiment on. Most of our 'textbook' examples are rather ancient! There are a few websites I use, but the range is rather limited. For time series, there is: - "A Sample of Astronomical Time Series" - <a href="http://xweb.nrl.navy.mil/timeseries/timeseries.html" rel="nofollow">http://xweb.nrl.navy.mil/timeseries/timeseries.html</a> The Astrostatistics summer school at PSU maintains a page with some datasets - "Astronomical datasets for statistical analysis" - <a href="http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/datasets/" rel="nofollow">http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/datasets/</a> The UK Swift data centre hosts a light curve repository where you can download ASCII time series for virtually any GRB observed with the Swift/XRT - "Swift/XRT GRB lightcurve repository" <a href="http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_curves/" rel="nofollow">http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_curves/</a> I wonder if any AstroStat readers know of any more like this...? Hyunsook, I agree entirely about the usefulness of a data repository. It would be really nice to have a range of data types (spectra, images, time series – from optical, X-ray, radio etc.) in common formats, from real observations of different sources, that can be used to demonstrate with or experiment on. Most of our ‘textbook’ examples are rather ancient!
There are a few websites I use, but the range is rather limited. For time series, there is:

– “A Sample of Astronomical Time Series” – http://xweb.nrl.navy.mil/timeseries/timeseries.html

The Astrostatistics summer school at PSU maintains a page with some datasets

– “Astronomical datasets for statistical analysis” – http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/datasets/

The UK Swift data centre hosts a light curve repository where you can download ASCII time series for virtually any GRB observed with the Swift/XRT

- “Swift/XRT GRB lightcurve repository” http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_curves/

I wonder if any AstroStat readers know of any more like this…?

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By: brianISU http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/comment-page-1/#comment-293 brianISU Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:48:14 +0000 http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/#comment-293 Dear hlee, this website might be what you are looking for. I believe it is ran through NASA and University of Maryland. I used a data set here to try and understand the lifetime distribution of stars from supernova data as a class project. There seems to be many interesting data sets to glance through. I hope this helps. http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ Dear hlee,

this website might be what you are looking for. I believe it is ran through NASA and University of Maryland. I used a data set here to try and understand the lifetime distribution of stars from supernova data as a class project. There seems to be many interesting data sets to glance through. I hope this helps.

http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/

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By: hlee http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/comment-page-1/#comment-292 hlee Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:29:03 +0000 http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/#comment-292 Dear Simon, For high energy astrophysicists, books for particle physicists seem very useful and highly related. I'll get the book later and read/scan. Thanks in bunch! I wish there are some astronomical data depositories where no data reduction is required but one can apply various statistical analyses to the data in the depository to learn and compare statistical methods. I always have troubles in data reduction because I'm lack in hand-on instructions of reducing data sets that are nowadays available from websites and virtual observatory. I see dozens of thousand points from an archive but papers reduce them to a few hundreds or thousands prior to statistical analysis. These reduced data sets are not available to a person like me. Once these reduced data sets from various astronomy divisions are available and put into a common depository; it'll be useful for teaching statistics and data analysis to young astronomy students while exposing them various fields of astronomy. Also, it'll lead up-to-date astrostatistics textbooks to be written so that there's no need for astronomers to rely on books published 4-5 decades ago. Dear Simon,

For high energy astrophysicists, books for particle physicists seem very useful and highly related. I’ll get the book later and read/scan. Thanks in bunch!

I wish there are some astronomical data depositories where no data reduction is required but one can apply various statistical analyses to the data in the depository to learn and compare statistical methods. I always have troubles in data reduction because I’m lack in hand-on instructions of reducing data sets that are nowadays available from websites and virtual observatory. I see dozens of thousand points from an archive but papers reduce them to a few hundreds or thousands prior to statistical analysis. These reduced data sets are not available to a person like me.

Once these reduced data sets from various astronomy divisions are available and put into a common depository; it’ll be useful for teaching statistics and data analysis to young astronomy students while exposing them various fields of astronomy. Also, it’ll lead up-to-date astrostatistics textbooks to be written so that there’s no need for astronomers to rely on books published 4-5 decades ago.

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By: Simon Vaughan http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/comment-page-1/#comment-280 Simon Vaughan Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:42:09 +0000 http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/#comment-280 Following Vinay's and Hyunsook's posts: there's a second edition of 'Statistical Methods in Experimental Physics' (Eadie et al. 1971) with improve typesetting but most of the same material. (The original looks *very* dated because of the typesetting.) It is by only one of the original authors - F. James. There's also a nice book 'Statistical Data Analysis' by Glen Cowan that covers a lot of the same material, but is again aimed at particle physicists. Following Vinay’s and Hyunsook’s posts: there’s a second edition of ‘Statistical Methods in Experimental Physics’ (Eadie et al. 1971) with improve typesetting but most of the same material. (The original looks *very* dated because of the typesetting.) It is by only one of the original authors – F. James.

There’s also a nice book ‘Statistical Data Analysis’ by Glen Cowan that covers a lot of the same material, but is again aimed at particle physicists.

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By: vlk http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/comment-page-1/#comment-170 vlk Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:03:25 +0000 http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/#comment-170 Wow, is that the original description of the eponymous Eddington Bias?! Fascinating to see it worked out. Astonishing to see it cited only 85 times. Astronomers, mark this for future reference [sic]: Eddington, A.S., 1913, MNRAS, 73, 359 I have always looked upon it as a realization of Poisson statistics, but I notice that the treatment is in the Gaussian regime, and is quite general. It strikes me that it should work perfectly well in other situations, e.g., to non-parametrically deconvolve moderate resolution grating spectra, such as those from EUVE/*W or Chandra/LETG. Wow, is that the original description of the eponymous Eddington Bias?! Fascinating to see it worked out. Astonishing to see it cited only 85 times. Astronomers, mark this for future reference [sic]: Eddington, A.S., 1913, MNRAS, 73, 359

I have always looked upon it as a realization of Poisson statistics, but I notice that the treatment is in the Gaussian regime, and is quite general. It strikes me that it should work perfectly well in other situations, e.g., to non-parametrically deconvolve moderate resolution grating spectra, such as those from EUVE/*W or Chandra/LETG.

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By: Mauro http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/comment-page-1/#comment-169 Mauro Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:05:45 +0000 http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/#comment-169 For the shrinkage estimator do you refer to this paper <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1913MNRAS..73..359E" rel="nofollow">On a formula for correcting statistics for the effects of a known error of observation</a> ? If yes, this estimator is widely used in the Eddington book. For the shrinkage estimator do you refer to this paper
On a formula for correcting statistics for the effects of a known error of observation ? If yes, this estimator is widely used in the Eddington book.

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By: TomLoredo http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/comment-page-1/#comment-162 TomLoredo Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:15:25 +0000 http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/#comment-162 To clarify re: <em>Statistical Astronomy</em>, it is a classic worth knowing about, not so much for general statistical analysis of data, but for <em>statistical modeling of astronomical populations</em>. For example, it's the classic reference for the so-called fundamental equation for star counts (perhaps Trumpler and Weaver gave it that name). Mauro's mention of Eddington is interesting in another respect: I don't know if it's covered in his 1914 book, but by that time he had written papers that introduced something like a shrinkage estimator---decades before Stein! This might make a neat paper for someone interested in the history of statistics, since shrinkage estimation is one of the key developments of 20th century statistics. To clarify re: Statistical Astronomy, it is a classic worth knowing about, not so much for general statistical analysis of data, but for statistical modeling of astronomical populations. For example, it’s the classic reference for the so-called fundamental equation for star counts (perhaps Trumpler and Weaver gave it that name).

Mauro’s mention of Eddington is interesting in another respect: I don’t know if it’s covered in his 1914 book, but by that time he had written papers that introduced something like a shrinkage estimator—decades before Stein! This might make a neat paper for someone interested in the history of statistics, since shrinkage estimation is one of the key developments of 20th century statistics.

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By: Mauro http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/comment-page-1/#comment-161 Mauro Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:33:09 +0000 http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/#comment-161 There are other two very "old" books "Lehrbuch der stellarstatistik" by E. von der Pahlen, F. Gondolatsch, L. Hufnagel, 1937, and "Stellar movements and the structure of the universe" by A.S. Eddington 1914. The two books are not useful for modern astronomy but they are a trace of what astronomers have do with statistics. There are other two very “old” books “Lehrbuch der stellarstatistik” by E. von der Pahlen, F. Gondolatsch, L. Hufnagel, 1937, and “Stellar movements and the structure of the universe” by A.S. Eddington 1914. The two books are not useful for modern astronomy but they are a trace of what astronomers have do with statistics.

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By: hlee http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/comment-page-1/#comment-160 hlee Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:29:24 +0000 http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/#comment-160 Well..I spent 5 minutes or so in the library to scan the book. Statistical Astronomy, because of its age, needs a title makeover, like "Statistical methods for gaussian astronomical data without computer." I'm very spoiled with modern tools so as to say that the techniques the book describes are not much discussed in statistics. Statistics evolved a lot over the years and is moving forward quickly. The book seems to rely heavily on gaussianity and small sample. Also, the astronomical examples seem to be already implemented in astronomical tools because I never confronted such examples last year, although I learned Jacobians and spherical coordinate representations from an old professor more than 10 years ago). Very likely I got a wrong impression and prejudice due to the fact that the library copy received no one's touch ever since it was purchased more than 40 years ago. However, I'm very grateful to you that I learn there has been a quite long history in astrostatistics. There have been statistics references for astronomers according to their statistical needs, not lack of references. Well..I spent 5 minutes or so in the library to scan the book. Statistical Astronomy, because of its age, needs a title makeover, like “Statistical methods for gaussian astronomical data without computer.” I’m very spoiled with modern tools so as to say that the techniques the book describes are not much discussed in statistics. Statistics evolved a lot over the years and is moving forward quickly. The book seems to rely heavily on gaussianity and small sample. Also, the astronomical examples seem to be already implemented in astronomical tools because I never confronted such examples last year, although I learned Jacobians and spherical coordinate representations from an old professor more than 10 years ago). Very likely I got a wrong impression and prejudice due to the fact that the library copy received no one’s touch ever since it was purchased more than 40 years ago. However, I’m very grateful to you that I learn there has been a quite long history in astrostatistics.

There have been statistics references for astronomers according to their statistical needs, not lack of references.

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By: Mauro http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/comment-page-1/#comment-159 Mauro Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:51:27 +0000 http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/books-a-boring-title/#comment-159 Very interesting post. I suggest another "old" book: Statistical Astronomy, by R.J. Trumpler, H.F. Weaver, 1962, Dover. Very interesting post.
I suggest another “old” book: Statistical Astronomy, by R.J. Trumpler, H.F. Weaver, 1962, Dover.

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