Phy 110: Descriptive Astronomy

Spring 2009

Wilder Auditorium, 112 Knight Physics Building

Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:45

Information

Final Exam Wednesday, 13 May 2009, 8:00-10:30 AM.

Course Information

Syllabus (Updated 28 Feb 2009)

Textbook

Textbook website

Links

Astronomy Club --- Go to meetings for extra credit

Astronomy Picture of the Day

International Year of Astronomy

Exams

Midterm 1

• Example Midterm 1 with solutions (from 2002)
• Example Midterm 1 with solutions (from 2008)
• Actual Midterm 1 with solutions

Midterm 2

• Example Midterm 2 with solutions. (This course had a somewhat different syllabus, so the topics covered don't completely overlap.)
• Actual Midterm 2 with solutions

Midterm 3

• Actual Midterm 3 with solutions

Final Exam

Lectures

1. Introduction
2. Knowing the Heavens
3. Eclipses and the Moon
4. Planetary Motion
5. Newton's Laws and Gravitation
6. Nature of light
7. Light and atoms
8. Telescopes
9. Planets and bodies in the solar system (but not the Sun).
10. Terrestrial Planets
11. Jovian Planets
12. Solar system formation
13. Exoplanets
14. The Sun. (Link to movies from SOHO spacecraft.)
15. Introduction to stars
16. Star formation
17. Stellar evolution
18. Deaths of stars
19. Neutron stars
20. Black holes
21. The Milky Way
22. Galaxies
23. Cosmology
24. Inflation and Nucleosynthesis