ASTR 1030 - Astronomy

Class Information

Course Syllabus

Course Schedule

Dr. Farris' Office Hours

Schedule for the week of November 10:

Monday:  Star death (Ch 13.1-10)
Wednesday:  Relativity (Ch 14.1-4, instructor's notes)
Wednesday Lab:  Lab 7:  Observing the Moon II
Friday:  Black holes I (Ch 14.5-7)

Schedule for the week of November 17:

Monday:  ***Test 4***
Wednesday:  Black holes II (Ch 14.6-9)
Wednesday Lab:  no lab meeting
Friday:  The Milky Way (Ch 15.1-8)

 

Lab Information and Write ups

(Lab schedule, lab report guidelines, write-ups for the labs, etc.)

Links

Solar System overview chart

Astro Images From Vol State

Area amateur astronomy clubs:

Gallatin's Cumberland Astronomical Society
Nashville's Barnard-Seyfert Astronomical Society

Apollo Lunar Mission Profile

Here are a couple of calendars for lunar eclipses  and solar eclipses.  The next "good" eclipse for Middle Tennessee is a lunar eclipse on the night of Feb 20, 2008.

A few flight profiles for a typical Space Shuttle Mission: Profile 1, Profile 2

Vanderbilt's Dyer Observatory will have public nights (extra credit) in 2007.

Astronomy Picture of the Day - A new, "cool" picture each day!

Lunar Picture of the Day - A new, "cool" picture of the Moon each day!

Mars' 2003 Opposition was among the best ever.

Example Test - This is an old test from a similar class I taught at Vanderbilt.  It will give you an idea of the style of test you can expect.  Note that this course covered different material than ASTR 1030, so don't expect the questions to be the same.  (In other words, don't freak out if you've never heard of the stuff in some of the questions!)

Some Geocentric vs. Heliocentric helps:

More about Ptolemy...
A simulation of deferents and epicycles...
Animations of Kepler's three laws...

Here is the link to the simulation we used in class to show that orbiting is just falling with enough "sideways" speed.

SEDS and JPL have very nice, comprehensive information about the Solar System.  SEDS also has a nice deep sky catalog (Messier catalog).

Sky and Telescope and Astronomy Magazines have comprehensive websites for observers and amateur astronomers.

For help pronouncing all those Greek, Latin and Arabic words, check out the Astronomical League's Star and Constellation Pronunciation Guide and Solar System Pronunciation Guide.

Folks have some fun with the stellar spectral classes.

The Atlas of the Universe shows the universe at various scales from a few light years to 10 billion light years.

Mars Talk for Adventure Science Center, Astronomy Day 2003.

Up one level

Last Modified November 10, 2008.