Tuesday August 27:

READING: Sections 1.1 - 1.2; Appendix 1.
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Powers of 10 Notation
• 3. Astronomical Distances
• 4. Angular Measurement
• 5. Angular Size vs. Distance
• 6. Slide Show

READING: Sections 1.3 - 1.4
• 1. The Celestial Sphere
• 2. Circumpolar Constellations
• 3. Some Definitions
• 4. Celestial Coordinates
• 5. The Sun's Location on the Sky
• 6. Solar Day vs. Sidereal Day
• 7. Constellations

Tuesday September 3:

READING: Sections 1.5 - 1.6
• 1. The Seasons
• 2. Precession
• 3. Phases of the Moon
• 4. Moonrise and Moonset
• 5. Eclipses

Thursday September 5:

READING: Section 2.2; Table 3A in Appendix
• 1. Synchronous Rotation
• 2. Lunar Month vs. Sidereal Month
• 3. Daytime on the Moon
• 4. Finding Planets on the Sky
• 5. General Rules of Planetary Motion
• 6. Sidereal vs. Synodic Period
• 7. Retrograde Motion of the Planets

READING: Rest of Chapter 1
• 1. Pictures of Eclipses
• 2. Relative Size of Earth and Moon
• 3. Relative Size of Sun and Moon
• 4. Quiz #1

Thursday September 12:

READING: Sections 2.1 and 2.3
• 1. Evidence of Spherical Earth
• 2. Parallax
• 3. The Diameter of the Earth
• 4. Epicycles
• 5. Magnitudes
• 6. The Almagest
• 7. The Babylonian Calendar
• 8. Ancient Astronomy in Other Lands
• 9. Maya Astronomy

Tuesday September 17:

READING: Sections 2.4 - 2.6
• 1. Astrolabes and Armillary Spheres
• 2. Nicolaus Copernicus
• 3. Tycho Brahe
• 4. Kepler's Three Laws of Planetary Motion
• 5. Inertia
• 6. Falling Objects
• 7. Galileo's Astronomical Observations

Thursday September 19:

READING: Rest of Chapter 2
• 1. Newton's First Law: Inertia Revisited
• 2. Mass vs. Weight
• 3. Newton's Second Law
• 4. Acceleration vs. Velocity
• 5. Newton's Third Law
• 6. Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation
• 7. Examples
• 8. Falling Objects Revisited
• 9. Newton's Revision of Kepler's Third Law
• 10. The Mass of Saturn

Tuesday September 24:

• 1. Orbital Motion
• 2. Weightlessness
• 3. Escape Velocity
• 4. Rate of Loss of Atmosphere
• 5. Quiz #2

READING: Sections 3.1 - 3.3
• 1. Temperature Scales
• 2. Energy Conservation
• 3. Units of Energy
• 4. Kepler's Second Law Revisited
• 5. Center of Mass
• 6. The Electromagnetic Spectrum
• 7. The Frequency of Light
• 8. The Energy Carried by Light
• 9. The Wave-Particle Duality of Light

Tuesday October 1:

READING: Sections 3.4 and 4.1
• 1. Thermal Radiation
• 2. Wien's Law
• 3. Some Mathematical Examples
• 4. Some IR Pictures
• 5. Stefan's Law
• 6. Luminosity vs. Brightness
• 7. Emission Line Spectra
• 8. Absorption Line Spectra
• 9. Kirchoff's Laws

READING: Rest of Chapters 3; Chapter 4
• 1. Doppler Shift
• 2. Energy Levels in Atoms
• 3. The Chemical Elements
• 4. Ions and Isotopes
• 5. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
• 6. Spectral Line Broadening
• 7. The Hydrogen Atom

Tuesday October 8:

• 1. Refraction
• 2. Mirages
• 3. Refracting Telescopes
• 4. Chromatic Aberration
• 5. Quiz #3

Thursday October 10:

READING: Sections 5.1 - 5.4
• 1. Reflection
• 2. Reflecting Telescopes
• 3. Diffraction
• 4. Diffraction Gratings
• 5. Resolution
• 6. Seeing
• 7. Light Gathering Power

Thursday October 17:

READING: Rest of Chapter 5
• 1. Telescopes at Different Wavelengths
• 2. Pictures of Telescopes

Tuesday October 22:

READING: Sections 6.1 - 6.6
• 1. Inventory of the Solar System
• 2. The Definition of a Planet
• 3. The Classification of Planets
• 4. Motions in the Solar System
• 5. Spacecraft to the Planets

Thursday October 24:

READING: Rest of Chapter 6; Sections 15.1 and 15.2
• 1. The Formation of the Solar System
• 2. Conservation of Angular Momentum
• 3. Differentiation
• 4. Evidence for the Solar System Formation Model
• 5. Some Pictures

Tuesday October 29:

• 1. The Atmospheres of Planets and Moons
• 2. The Origin and Evolution of Planetary (and Moon) Atmospheres
• 3. Quiz #4

Thursday November 1:

READING: Sections 7.1 - 7.2; Section 9.5; Rest of Chapter 15
• 1. Why is the Sky Blue?
• 2. The Ozone Layer and the Ionosphere
• 3. The Greenhouse Effect
• 4. Convection
• 5. The Coriolis Effect
• 6. Extrasolar Planets
• 7. Selection Effects in the Search for Extrasolar Planets
• 8. Brown Dwarfs

Tuesday November 5:

READING: Sections 7.3, 7.5, 7.6
• 1. The Interiors of Planets
• 2. Heat Flow out of Planets
• 3. Magnetic Dynamos
• 4. Aurora
• 5. The Ocean Tides
• 6. The Earth's Changing Sidereal Day

Thursday November 7:

READING: Rest of Chapter 7
• 1. Triton's Orbit
• 2. Tidal Forces and the Galilean Moons
• 3. Plate Tectonics
• 4. Hot Spot Volcanism
• 5. Comparative Planetary Geology
• 6. Radioactive Decay
• 7. Demo of Radioactive Decay

Tuesday November 12: READING: Chapter 8

• 1. The Formation of the Moon
• 2. The Surface of the Moon
• 3. The Orbit of Mercury
• 4. The Surface of Mercury

Thursday November 14:

READING: Rest of Chapter 9
• 1. The Surface of Venus
• 2. Quiz #5

Tuesday November 19:

READING: Chapter 10; Sections 11.1 - 11.4; Sections 12.1 - 12.4, 13.1 - 13.4
• 1. The Surface of Mars
• 2. Rovers on Mars
• 3. The Atmospheres of the Jovian Planets
• 4. The Interiors of the Jovian Planets

Thursday November 21:

READING: Rest of Chapters 11 and 12
• 1. Overview of the Galilean Moons
• 2. Io
• 3. Europa
• 4. Callisto
• 5. Ganymede
• 6. The Moons of Saturn

Tuesday November 26:

READING: Rest of Chapter 13; Chapter 14
• 1. The Moons of Uranus
• 2. Triton
• 3. Kuiper Belt Objects
• 4. Pluto
• 5. Charon
• 6. Planetary Rings
• 7. Asteroids
• 8. Comets

Tuesday December 3:

• 4. Quiz #6

Thursday December 5:

• 1. Firefall Planetarium Show