UMM PHYS 1053: Stars, Galaxies & Cosmology
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Breaking News: Updated
05/10/2008 6:23 PM
05/10/2008 Exam Info: There is now a topic list for the final exam posted under the Reading Study Questions link. You will also want to remind yourself of the key questions & topics from the Dark Side reading, as given in the Vocabulary Lists link. The exam will be similar in format to the midterm, and is not overtly comprehensive. (What that means is, I will not ask questions like "what are the two main goals of a telescope?" but you still need to understand how telescopes work to understand topics in the second half of the semester. E.g. why did it take until the 1970s to discover the hot intra-cluster gas that is one of the pieces of evidence for dark matter on the scale of galaxy clusters? X-rays can't get through Earth's atmosphere so discovery had to wait for the space age. Why does the Sun go from opaque to transparent at the photosphere? The density of atoms has dropped so that most photons no longer encounter an atom that can absorb and re-emit them. Etc.) 05/08/2008 Re-writing an essay: You still have the option to re-write one of the two essays from before the midterm. Re-writes must be submitted by the start of the final exam, and must include the original graded version attached to the new version. 05/08/2008 Office Hours before Final Exam: Fri (05/09) @ 1:30 pm to at least 3:00. Mon (05/12) @1:30-2:30, then come throw pie at me at 3 pm. Tues (05/13) 1:00-3:00. Wed (05/14) @ 1:30-3:00. Thurs - none. 05/08/2008 Exam Study Session: Monday (05/12) starting at 7:30 pm in the Astronomy Lab on the 4th floor (where the planetarium is). Come & go as your schedule allows; I will stay at least an hour, but probably not more than two hours. I will return assignments here and also hand out current grade statements. 05/06/2008 Final Essay: I had intended that the final essay be due on the last day of class (Thursday), but it seems I neglected to write that down anywhere, so I suppose I will take them as late as the start of the final exam. But if you've got it done before then, it would be a nice thing to turn it in earlier, because then I'm more likely to be able to submit the course grades on time. 04/30/2008 Cool Software: If you've got some time on your hands and a computer this summer, check out the Digital Universe software from the Hayden Planetarium. It involves a large download (450 MB) and some reading of the manual, but then you get to fly all around the solar neighborhood/galaxy/universe at will! | ||
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Other Interesting Stuff |
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Finding Me: |
Answers to & Discussion of Notecard Questions |
Sky and Telescope's interactive sky chart : to help locate constellations, clusters & the Andromeda galaxy with binoculars. |
Observing Project (PDF, due by last day of class) |
Stellarium planetarium software download. | |
Planetarium Questions (PDF, due by midterm) |
Current image of the Sun . | |
Northern Lights: (2008 is still near solar minimum, so occurrences are rare this year.) | ||
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Astronomy Photo of the Day (APOD) |
Constellations Exercise: (PDF) worksheet & instructions & The Sky setup file (download to desktop & open within The Sky.) |
Watch the show Solar storms on the Discovery channel: click on “Perfect Disaster: Solar Storms.” |
James Kaler's Stars Website |
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Just funny… if you’ve ever seen the ‘Powers of Ten’ short film. | |
Retrograde Motion homework |
Physics Applets, including under Dynamics: Projectile/Satellite Orbits, Balance of Blocks (center of mass experiment) | |
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Kepler's Laws & Newton's Improvements | |
Stellar Radii : See slide #20 of Interaction of Matter & Radiation |
Stellar evolution tutorial | |
| Galaxy Song , with Hubble images | ||
| Here's a nice “virtual” version of the draw-an-ellipse-with-string exercise | ||
| Here is a webpage that shows what “seeing” looks like. Scroll about 2/3 of the way down the page, to the section called Resolution: Seeing . Read the section, then click on the image of a blob to see the movie. | ||
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Milky Way's Invisible Light Movie on reserve at library. worksheet |
Making a "blackbody" -Yahoo news item. |
Hubble Law exercise |
Diffraction: Here's a nice movie of the diffraction of a red laser beam pasing between two razor blades. | |
Rotation Curve exercise |
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Maintained by Kristin Kearns
Page URL:
http://cda.morris.umn.edu/~kearnsk/Pages07-08/Phys1053/Phys1053_home.htm
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