Course Website for ASTR 1050, Fall 2014, Brotherton Instructor


Featured videos:

Wanderers - a short film by Erik Wernquist from Erik Wernquist on Vimeo.

Free pdfs of Johnson's Astronomy Text

Lecture slides in Powerpoint

Slides (powerpoint)

0. Introduction

1. Our Place in the Universe

2. Discovering the Universe Yourself

3. History of Astronomy and Science

4. Motion, Energy, and Gravity

5. Light and Matter

Practice exam 1 (through Light and Matter) And the answer key. Note that there is an error in the key. Question 19 should be "d".

The first exam and the Exam 1 Answer Key.

6. Solar System Overview

7. Terrestrial Planets

8. Jovian Planets

9. Asteroids, Comets, and Dwarf Planets

10. Exoplanets

11. The Sun

12. Stars

13. Star Formation

Practice exam 2 (6-13, Solar System through Star Formation) Answer key

Exam 2 and Answer key

14. Stellar End States

15. The Milky Way

16. Galaxies

17. Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and The Big Bang

Practice exam 3 (The Final -- Stellar End States to Big Bang and the key

Special News

NOTE: The final exam (3) is Wed., Dec. 17 at 10 AM. It is not cumulative, and will cover material since the last exam (End States of Stars through Cosmology). Also note that we will have lecture the final two Fridays, and that the assigned lecture tutorials for those dates should be considered ungraded homework, worth your time to do.

There will be a review session Tuesday, Dec. 16 at 5pm in the astronomy lab room.

EXTRA CREDIT: The Planetarium is now open (Friday nights -- see the schedule. Bringing me a ticket stub from a show will be worth 25 homework points. Additionally, there is a final homework on cosmology that is not due until Finals week and is not required, but will count as extra credit if you choose to do it. It may be useful to do studying for the final in any event.

The average on the second exam was 66%. We will have a 9 point curve to bring the average up to 75%, like the first exam, and you should add this to your raw score to get the score I will use in making final grades.

ROOM CHANGE: On Friday, September 12, we will begin to meet in GEOLOGY 216. Sorry for the inconvenience, but it will help out another course quite a bit.

Exam Related Information

Exam 1: Section 1, early astronomy. Constants and equations will be provided. Bring your own BLUE 5 ANSWER answer sheet and a calculator.

Exam 2: Sections 2 and 3 (planets and stars). Constants and equations will be provided. Bring your own BLUE 5 ANSWER answer sheet and a calculator.

Exam 3: During finals week. Section 4 (Galaxies and Cosmology). Constants and equations will be provided. Bring your own BLUE 5 ANSWER answer sheet and a calculator.

Extra Credit Activities

Some supplemental items/links.

Mastering Astronomy for homeworks, grades, etc. You will need the code "BROTHERTONFALL2014" to find the course.

Document about registering for masteringastronomy.com

Online Version of Course Syllabus (doc).

Astronomy Picture of the Day is a great webpage to visit every day.