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ASTR 1050: Survey of Astronomy, Fall 2019

Lecture Schedule

The format of this schedule has been tested in Safari and Firefox. It may be updated. Any updates will be announced in class.



A full lecture schedule for ASTR1050 is included below. In case you choose to buy a textbook (although, I stress, that this is probably not necessary), then the readings correspond roughly to the intended chapter number in Comins & Kaufmann; Discovering the Universe (see the syllabus for full details). Although exam material may be drawn from homeworks, lectures and labs I will attempt to only test material that is covered in some form in lectures (and that is noted in the "Learning Objectives" for each lecture).

Time and again people get caught by the difficulty of the material from the first seven lectures, which is very much concept-based rather than fact-based. Each of these lectures has an [xtra] link. Clicking on this link will lead to a page of questions to help with key concepts. Hopefully, these [xtra] links also help students who add the course late.

The [pdf] next to each lecture name (after the first lecture) links to the lecture notes in PDF format. The lecture notes for a given week will be posted no later than the Saturday morning before each week of lectures. In general, these notes do not address all of the material I will cover in each lecture, but they're a good start (i.e. you will have to show up to lectures and make some notes to perform well on the exams).

Homework issue dates and due dates are noted in the "Homeworks" column. Homeworks should be completed on UW's WyoCourses site. Homework answers will also be posted on WyoCourses. Homeworks are due at 9AM on Monday morning. Homework answers will become available on Monday afternoons at 1PM. The next week's homework will become available on Monday mornings at 10AM. Each homework will usually review material covered in approximately the previous week of lectures. The first few homeworks, however, may have to cover material from the same week the homework is issued, as we won't cover much in Week 1. An example homework is available for the first week of lectures (with dummy questions) so that you can practice using WyoCourses.

Links to the labs are posted in the "Topic and Weekly Labs" column. The labs should all already be available at the links, but corrections might occur up to 3 days before the week of each lab. The names and dates in the titles of the lab PDFs may not necessarily correspond exactly to those on this schedule. You will need to print out the PDFs and bring them to lab with you. If you like, try some of the lab questions in advance. Note, though, that the printout you take to labs must not be filled out in advance. Of course, this doesn't stop you knowing a lab sufficiently well that you can complete it very quickly during your lab session.



Date Topic and Weekly LabsReadingHomeworks, etc.
September
WEEK 1 NO LAB
W 4 [xtra] The Illimitable Ocean [pdf] No HW, try WyoCourses example
F 6 [xtra] The Scientific Method, or How Big is the Sun? [pdf] Poll Everywhere trial run
WEEK 2 LAB 1 - Planetarium (Meet in ENZI Stem 180)
M 9 [xtra] A Sky Full of Stars - I. [pdf] 1.1-1.4 Homework 1 (HW1) available
Poll Everywhere assessment begins
W 11 NO LECTURE
F 13 [xtra] A Sky Full of Stars - II. [pdf] 1.1-1.4
WEEK 3 LAB 2 - Our Moon
M 16 [xtra] The Reason for the Seasons [pdf] 1.5-1.8 HW1 due, HW2 available
W 18 [xtra] Eclipses and the Lunar Cycle [pdf] 1.9-1.13
F 20 [xtra] Kepler's Laws, or Ne frustra vixisse videar [pdf] 2.1-2.5
WEEK 4 LAB 3 - Planetary Orbits and Kepler's Laws
M 23 Our Home: The Earth [pdf] [links] 6.1-6.4 HW2 due, HW3 available
W 25 Our Companion: The Moon [pdf] 6.5-6.10
F 27 Mercury and Venus [pdf] 7.1-7.7
WEEK 5 LAB 4 - Planetary Geology
M 30 The Red Planet [pdf] 7.8-7.16 HW3 due, HW4 available
October
W 2 The Fathers of The Gods [pdf] 8.1-8.13
F 4 The Edge of Town [pdf] 9.1-9.9
WEEK 6 LAB 5 - Observing on the Roof (not graded) (MTW, 8PM, roof of the Physics Building)
M 7 REVIEW LECTURE TESTS WEEKS 1, 2, 3, 4, AND THE HW4 due, HW5 available
W 9 EXAM 1 FIRST TWO LECTURES OF WEEK 5
F 11 Death from the Skies [pdf] [link1] [link2] 9.10-9.14
WEEK 7 LAB 6 - Parallax
M 14 Making a Solar System [pdf] 5.1-5.5 HW5 due, HW6 available
W 16 Our Beacon: The Sun [pdf] 10.1-10.6
F 18 Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun [pdf] 10.7-10.10
WEEK 8 LAB 7 - The Electromagnetic Spectrum
M 21 The Electromagnetic Spectrum [pdf] 3.1-3.4 HW6 due, HW7 available
W 23 How Hot is a Star? [pdf] 4.1-4.8
F 25 Leaving Home [pdf] 11
WEEK 9 LAB 8 - HR Diagram
M 28 Life on the Main Sequence [pdf][links] 12.6-12.16 HW7 due, HW8 available
W 30 The Stuff Between the Stars [pdf] 12.1-12.5
November
F 1 The Death of Stars - I. [pdf] 13.1-13.4
WEEK 10 NO LAB
M 4 REVIEW LECTURE TESTS THE 3rd LECTURE OF WEEK 5 HW8 due, HW9 available
W 6 EXAM 2 THROUGH THE FIRST TWO OF WEEK 9
F 8 The Death of Stars - II. [pdf] 13.5-13.18
WEEK 11 LAB 9 - Structure of the Milky Way Galaxy
M 11 Black Holes, or The Monster at the Center of the Galaxy [pdf] 14 HW9 due, HW10 available
W 13 Our Milky Way [pdf] 15
F 15 The Great Debate [pdf] 16.1-16.6
WEEK 12 LAB 10 - Inverse Square Law
M 18 Objects in the Rear-view Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are [pdf] 16.7-16.11 HW10 due, HW11 available
W 20 Quasars: Back to the Infant Universe [pdf] 17
F 22 The Distance Ladder [pdf] 16.12-16.15
THANKSGIVING NO LAB
M 25 NO LECTURE - THANKSGIVING BREAK HW12 available
W 27 NO LECTURE - THANKSGIVING BREAK
F 29 NO LECTURE - THANKSGIVING BREAK
December
WEEK 13 LAB 11 - Hubble Law
M 2 The Dawn of Time [pdf] 18.1-18.5 HW11 due
W 4 A Cosmos is Born [pdf] 18.6-18.12
F 6 The Fate of the Universe [pdf] 18.13-18.16
WEEK 14 LAB 12 - Extrasolar Planets
M 9 Extrasolar Planets [pdf] 5.6-5.8 HW12 due, HW13 available (not assessed)
W 11 Extraterrestrial Life [pdf] 19
F 13 REVIEW LECTURE
W 18, 8AM-10AM EXAM 3 TESTS THE 3rd LECTURE OF WEEK 9 University Scheduled
AND WEEKS 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Wyoming, 
1000 E. University, Dept. 3905, 
Laramie, WY 82071, USA
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