Astro 150: Fall 2020 Course Outline

The outline below give the tentative schedule of "lectures" for this term. Keep in mind that we reserve the right to flexibility and may not strictly adhere to this schedule! This allows us to cover some subjects in greater or lesser detail as new discoveries are made during the term.

NOTE Readings are in the digital textbook Open Stax: Astronomy by Fraknoi et al.

DateNumberTopicReading (OpenStax)
Aug. 181 Introduction: The scales of the universe. Chapter 1
20 2 Historical background. Og through Newton's Laws Chapter 2: Section 2.2 & 2.4
Chapter 3: Sections 3.1 to 3.3
25 3 The "Four" Forces of Nature; Light and the electromagnetic spectrum Chapter 5: through 5.1
27 4 Thermal Radiation: the light from stars Chapter 5: Section 5.2 and Chapter 17, Section 17.2
Sept. 1 5 Spectral lines and spectroscopy: astronomical fingerprints Chapter 5: Sections 5.3, 5.5 and 5.4
3 6 Telescopes: powers, configurations, and instruments Chapter 6: through Section 6.2
8 7 Telescope instruments, space astronomy Chapter 6: Section 6.3 and 6.5
10 8 Our Sun as a star Chapter 15
15 9 The inside of the Sun and the Case of the Missing Neutrino. Chapter 16
-- -- EXAM 1
17 10 Stars: colors, brightness, spectral classification Chapter 17
22 11 The distance to the stars, the Doppler effect and stellar motions Chapter 19: Section 19.2
Chapter 5: Section 5.6
Chapter 17: Section 17.4
24 12 Stellar classification. The H-R diagram. Masses and binaries Chapter 17: Section 17.3
Chapter 18: Section 18.4
Chapter 18: Section 18.2
29 13 The Main Sequence: Stellar lifetimes, star clusters and stellar evolution. Chapter 18: Section 18.4
Chapter 22 through Section 22.3
Oct. 1 14 Star formation. Chapter 21, through Section 21.3
6 15 Stellar "middle age" and geriatrics Chapter 22, Section 22.4-22.5
8 16 Stellar death: white dwarfs, supernovae and neutron stars Chapter 23: through Section 23.4
13 17 The Stellar Freak Show-Bizarre outcomes of stellar evolution. Black Holes Chapter 24: Section 24.5 and 24.6
15 18 The Stuff between the stars; the Milky Way Chapter 20
Chapter 25: Section 25.1
20 19 The Milky Way Galaxy: a census Chapter 25
-- -- EXAM 2
22 20 Galaxy types. Galaxy Interactions. Chapter 26: through Section 26.2
Chapter 28, Section 28.2
27 21 Distances to galaxies. Hubble's law and the Expanding Universe. Chapter 26, Section 26.4-5
29 22 The Galaxy Freak Show: Quasars and other bizarre galaxies Chapter 27
Nov. 3 23 Dark Matter and large scale structure. Chapter 28, Section 28.4
Section 28.3
Section 28.5
5 24 Cosmology I: Questions. The age of the Universe Chapter 29, Section 29.1
10 25 Cosmology II: The Big Bang and its aftermath. Chapter 29, Section 29.2-29.4
12 26 Cosmology III: The past and future of the Universe. Chapter 29, Section 29.5-29.6
17 27 Life in the Universe: I. Chapter 30, Section 30.4 (the Drake Equation)
Chapter 30, Section 30.1-30.2
Chapter 20, Section 21.4-21.5
19 28 Life in the Universe: II. Conclusions
Chapter 30, Section 30.2-30.4
-- -- EXAM 3