syllabus & course expectations
Astronomy
Picture of the Day
the
latest astrophysics discoveries
what's up in the sky
this week
Skywatcher's
Diary for this month
| Monday, April 30 |
May 1 |
May 2 |
May 3 |
May 4 |
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jit due by 9
am |
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(always done before class) |
19(6-7): what is the message of the H-R diagram? |
19(8) |
5(9) on the Doppler effect & 26(5) on the expanding universe (do NOT read the box associated with this section as it is absolutely bogus) |
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| things
you should know the answer to before coming to class |
why do more stars lie in the "main-sequence" region than in any other? | why spectral lines are broad and cover a range in wavelength |
see JIT |
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homework (written assignments to be turned in) |
bring to class: a calculation of the temperature of the corona of the sun in order to explain the existence of a FeXIV bright line (on a piece of paper to hand in) |
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doppler
effect applet a bow shock in the Orion nebula |
what
we saw at the observatory last night: 1) M44, the Beehive cluster 2) the constellation of Orion, the belt of Orion and M41, the Orion Nebula, in the sword 3) Saturn with rings and its moon Titan |
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of the week |
| Monday, April 23 |
April 24 |
April 25 |
April 26 |
April 27 |
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jit due by 1
pm today |
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(always done before class) |
continuing
with the salmon sheet
on the Bohr atom: explanation of spectral lines in particular, we learn angular physics (which is covered by chapter 10 and 11 in Walker) and forms a significant part of what we didnt learn here in our intro physics course |
19(5)
and box 7-2 the big discovery from wednesday (see wednesday's column with 4 links) |
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| things
you should know the answer to before coming to class |
bring
the calculation of ratio of the electric force to the gravitational
force between the proton and electron in the hydrogen atom finish reading the salmon sheet... look for new physics places where the authors made approximations or ignored things |
make
sure that you have checked all the algebra in every step followed the physics etc in the entire salmon handout we finish it today! |
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homework (written assignments to be turned in) |
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Earth-like planet?BBCLA Times NY Times USA Today Washington Post |
The Crab Nebula
& M57: the Ring Nebula are planetary nebulas with hot uv-emitting white dwarfs at the center (white dwarfs are earth-sized), the death phase of stars like the sun and those less massive spectrum of a planetary nebula fluorescence in the solar system: the eclipsed sun shows a red fluorescing atmosphere (which reveals the flash spectrum) flash spectrum with lines identified fluorescing hydrogen regions around hot stars help us trace the spiral arms and places of recent stellar birth gas in the Coma Cluster of galaxies others that we haven't see before: starbirth nebula: Orion's Great Nebula & the Trifid Nebula are starbirth sites; note that red- fluorescing nebulas can only surround BLUE (uv-emitting stars) A Perseid Aurora
& Comet tails
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asteroid
parallax lab due today |
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of the week |
| Monday, April 16 |
April 17 |
April 18 |
April 19 |
April 20 |
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(always done before class) |
boxes
19-2, 19-3 [and of course you have read sections 19(2-3)] |
text,
5(7 and 8 but only up to the bottom of p. 110) & salmon handout, section 30(2) |
salmon
handout section 30(3) up to the middle of page 7 |
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| things
you should know the answer to before coming to class |
how to do magnitude problems; familiarity with the several magnitude formula |
what physics that they used is new to you? did you check how they got from one equation to the next (i.e., check the algebra) |
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| homework (written assignments to be turned in) |
19(46, 49) and the cepheid problem (pages 480-481): 1) how many times brighter is delta Cephei at brightest than at faintest 2) find the distance to delta Cephei (to do this, you will have to measure a more accurate period; 2 sig figs is fine), then find the luminosity relative to the sun, then convert to absolute magnitude, then use the distance modulus formula (delta cephei is a type I cepheid) (note that the both scales on the p. 481 graph are log scales, which means you will have to take the log of the period to convert to luminosity, but i think, given our discussion of log scales on monday, you should know how to do this, but ask if you dont) |
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bring
your lab book to class and know what important things you have to
answer in this lab |
solar luminosity lab due today | asteroid
parallax lab you will have the option of running the HOU software on the computers in the back lab, or you can bring your own computer if you wish the HOU software can NOW be found on the T drive: T:\Software\Physics\HOU\PC_Installer you should be able to double click on the setup.exe icon to install (alternatively, you can just run it from the T drive) images for asteroid parallax lab: asteroid1.fts asteroid2.fts |
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of the week |
