Physics 301, "University Astronomy", Spring 2005

This material can be found online at URL

http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys301/phys301.html

Outline for the course, class schedule, etc.

This little tidbit may help you to decide if you want to take this particular course: just a few days ago, colleagues of mine took images of asteroid 1998WT simultaneously from two locations. I will use these images to illustrate concepts during the first few weeks, and assign problems involving them. I hope that students will end up using these images to measure the distance to this asteroid.

Lectures

Week 1: Coordinates, times, catalogs

• Celestial Coordinates
• Time Systems
• Catalogs and Tools
• The Rosetta spacecraft flies past the Earth

Weeks 2+3: The Solar System

• Precession, Proper Motions, and Angular Distances
• Apparent motions of the Sun and Moon
• The major terrestrial bodies of the Solar System
• The gas giants

• Measuring the distance to asteroid 1998WT (guest lecturer: Tracy Davis)
• The source of comets

Week 3: Astronomical Instruments

• Optical Telescopes
• Telescopes beyond the optical

Week 4: Photometric Analysis (Test 1 on Thu, Mar 31)

• The magnitude system
• Absolute and apparent magnitudes
• Filters and colors

Test 1

Week 5: Spectral Analysis

• Spectrographs and spectra
• Continuous spectra
• Emission and absorption lines
• Deriving motions from spectra

Week 6: Properties of Stars

• Measuring distance to stars via parallax
• Measuring stellar sizes
• Measuring stellar masses (I)
• Measuring stellar masses (II)

Week 7: More Properties of Stars

• The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
• Classfication of stellar spectra
• Exercise in spectral classification

Week 8: Stellar Evolution

• Deriving chemical composition from spectra
• Stellar evolution: birth
• Stellar evolution: life on the main sequence
• Stellar evolution: death

Week 9: Stellar remnants and the Milky Way Galaxy

• Neutron stars
• Black holes
• The Milky Way Galaxy: an overview
• The Milky Way Galaxy: how do we measure its size?

Week 10: Other galaxies and cosmology

• Evidence for an expanding universe
• The age of an expanding universe
• The expanding universe: more than meets the eye
• Current events: the gamma ray burst 050509b

May 18: Final exam in 08-3305, 2:45 PM

Homework sets.

• Answers to questions in "coords" lecture
• Answers to questions in "time" lecture
• Answers to questions in "Rosetta" lecture
• Answers to questions in "precession" lecture
• Answers the question, "How far from Earth was asteroid 1998WT?"
• Answers to questions in "Other Kinds of Telescopes" lecture
• Answers to questions in "The magnitude system" lecture
• Answers to questions in "Apparent and absolute magnitudes" lecture
• Answers to questions in "Emission and absorption lines" lecture
• Answers to questions in "Doppler shifts" lecture
• Answers to questions in "Parallax" lecture
• Answers to questions in "Stellar sizes" lecture
• Answers to questions in "Stellar Mass (II)" lecture
• Answers to questions in "Chemical composition" lecture
• Answers to questions in "Stellar Evolution (III)" lecture
• Answers to questions in "Black Holes" lecture
• Answers to questions in "Evidence of an expanding universe" lecture

Extra Credit Projects (each student may hand in up to 2 extra credit projects during the quarter)

1. Measure the period of solar rotation Due Mar 24 at 1 PM.
2. Determine your limiting magnitude Due Apr 6 at 1 PM.
3. Identify the mystery star Due Apr 28 at 1 PM.
4. Estimate the age of the Gemstone Cluster Due May 6 at 1 PM.

For more information

• Physics 230: Stellar Astronomy covers some of the same material as this course, but at a lower level.
• Physics 240: Introduction to Extragalactic Astronomy concentrates on the material we cover quickly in the last week of this course.
• Physics 440: Astrophysics I covers some of the same material as this course, but at a higher level.
• Physics 445: Observational Astronomy goes into much more detail than this course on the process of acquiring and reducing optical measurements.
• Cartes du Ciel is a free planetarium program for Windows. Thanks to Mr. Rigolo for providing the link.
• Celestia is not a planetarium program, really, but more of a spaceship simulator: it lets you fly around the Solar System (and beyond), looking at things as you go. It runs on many platforms. Thanks to Mr. Ryan for the information. Mr. Ryan also has a custom version of Celestia with some add-ons.
• "Hallo northern sky" is a free Windows planetarium program. Thanks to Mr. Ryan for pointing it out.
• PlanetQuest allows your computer to process astronomical data and search for small dips in brightness caused by extrasolar planets transiting their host stars. It will eventually make use of the Kepler mission's observations. Thanks to Mr. Burka for pointing out the PlanetQuest web site.

This page maintained by Michael Richmond. Last modified May 13, 2005.

Copyright © Michael Richmond. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.