Astro 001H, Spring 2006

Instructor: Dr. Christopher Palma

• 601 Davey Lab
• cpalma@astro.psu.edu
• 865-6236
• Office hours: R 3:30 - 5:00 or by appointment

Class Meetings: TR, 9:45 - 11:00, 121 Thomas

Course information:

• Course Syllabus (pdf format)
• Academic Integrity Policy
• Textbook: Astronomy A Beginner's Guide to the Universe
  • Chaisson, Eric; McMillan, Steve, ASTRONOMY: A Beginner's Guide to the Universe 4th Edition, copyright 2004
  • Figures included in notes below are electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
• Websites Related to Course Material

Course Calendar and Reading Assignments:

• 1/10 Course Introduction
  • No Reading
• 1/12 General Overview (Powers of 10, Scientific Method, Constellations)
  • Prologue P.1 & P.2, Discovery 1-1 (pp.26-27), Appendix 1&2
• 1/17 Earth / Moon / Sun system -- Reasons for seasons / phases of the Moon / eclipses
  • Chapter 1.1 - 1.3
• 1/19 Gravity & orbits, Kepler's & Newton's laws
  • Chapter 1.4 - 1.5
• 1/24 Electromagnetic radiation & The Blackbody spectrum
  • Chapter 2.1 - 2.4
• 1/26 Spectroscopy, the Doppler effect
  • Chapter 2.5 - 2.7
• 1/31 Telescopes + Review
  • Skim Chapter 3 (especially sections 3.1 - 3.3)
• 2/2 Solar System Overview
  • Chapter 4.1 - 4.3
• 2/7 Earth-Moon System
  • Chapter 5
• 2/9 The Terrestrial Planets
  • Chapter 6
• 2/14 The Jovian Planets + Moons, Rings, & Pluto
  • Chapter 7, skim Chapter 8
• 2/16 Mid-Term #1
• 2/21 The Sun
  • Chapter 9
• 2/23 Measuring the Properties of Stars
  • Chapter 10.1 - 10.4
• 2/28 Types of Stars
  • Chapter 10.5 - 10.7
• 3/2 Nebulae and Star Formation
  • Chapter 11.1 - 11.3
• 3/14 Stellar Evolution
  • Chapter 12.1, 12.2, 12.4
• 3/16 Star Clusters
  • Chapter 11.5 and 12.6
• 3/21 Novae, Supernovae, and Stellar Remnants
  • Chapter 12.3, 12.5
• 3/23 Exotic Stars, Pulsars, and Black Holes
  • Chapter 13.1 - 13.5
• 3/28 Black Hole Physics
  • Chapter 13.6 - 13.8
• 3/30 Mid-Term #2
• 4/4 Milky Way Galaxy Part I
  • Chapter 14.1 - 14.2
• 4/6 Milky Way Galaxy Part II
  • Chapter 14.3 - 14.4
• 4/11 The Galactic Center, Dark Matter, and the Nearest Galaxies
  • Chapter 14.6 - 14.7
• 4/13 The Hubble Classification Scheme for Galaxies and the Distance Ladder
  • Chapter 15.1 and the first part of 15.2
• 4/18 Active Galactic Nuclei
  • Chapter 15.3 - 15.5
• 4/20 Hubble's Law and Large Scale Structure
  • Second part of Chapter 15.2 and Chapter 16.1, 16.3, and 16.4
• 4/25 The Expanding Universe and the Big Bang
  • Chapter 17.1 - 17.4
• 4/27 Modern Cosmology - no notes today
  • Skim the rest of Chapter 17

Course Announcements:

• Homework #5 is due on Thursday, April 27 at the beginning of class.
• Homework #4 is due on Thursday, April 20 at the beginning of class.
• Homework #3 is due on Tuesday, April 4 at the beginning of class.
• Second Mid-term is scheduled for Thursday, Mar 30.
• Homework #2 is due on Tuesday, March 14 at the beginning of class.
  • To complete this assignment, you will need to use the "Revolution of the Moons of Jupiter" Lab, which is installed under Course Specific Programs / Astro 11 on the Windows XP computers in all of the computer labs. The computers often have difficulty starting the program, but you can access the program directly by using the path: L:\Courses\CLEA\Moon of Jupiter\CLEA_JUP.EXE
  • Measure two of the three large moons (Europa, Ganymede, & Callisto).
• Office hours are cancelled on Thursday Feb 9. For an appointment Wed or Fri, please call or email.
• First Mid-term scheduled for Thursday, Feb 16.
• Homework #1 is due on Tuesday, Jan 24 at the beginning of class.