Tuesday August 26:

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

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

Thursday September 4:

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 11:

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

Tuesday September 16:

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

Thursday September 18:

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. Examples
• 7. Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation
• 8. Falling Objects Revisited
• 9. Newton's Revision of Kepler's Third Law
• 10. The Mass of Saturn

Tuesday September 23:

• 1. Orbital Motion
• 2. Weightlessness
• 3. Escape Velocity
• 4. Quiz #2

Thursday September 25:

READING: Sections 3.1 and 3.2
• 1. Review of Quiz #2
• 2. Temperature Scales
• 3. Energy Conservation
• 4. Units of Energy
• 5. Kepler's Second Law Revisited
• 6. Center of Mass
• 7. The Electromagnetic Spectrum
• 8. The Wave-Particle Duality of Light
• 9. Radiative Energy
• 10. The Frequency of Light

Tuesday September 30:

READING: Sections 3.3 and 4.1
• 2. Thermal Radiation
• 3. Wien's Law
• 4. Some Mathematical Examples
• 5. Some IR Pictures
• 6. Stefan's Law
• 7. Luminosity vs. Brightness
• 8. Emission-Line Spectra
• 9. Absorption-Line Spectra
• 10. Kirchoff's Laws

Thursday October 2:

READING: Sections 3.4 and 3.5; Rest of 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 7:

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

Thursday October 9:

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

Thursday October 16:

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

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 23:

READING: Rest of Chapter 6; Chapter 15
• 1. The Formation of the Solar System
• 2. Conservation of Angular Momentum
• 3. Differentiation
• 4. Evidence for the Solar System Formation Model

Tuesday October 28:

• 1. Scale Model of the Solar System
• 2. Quiz #4

Thursday October 30:

READING: Pages 174 - 175
• 1. Review of Quiz #4
• 2. The Origin and Evolution of Planetary Atmospheres
• 3. The Atmospheres of Planets and Moons
• 4. Why is the Sky Blue?
• 5. Extrasolar Planets
• 6. Selection Effects in the Search for Extrasolar Planets

Tuesday November 4:

READING: Sections 7.1 - 7.3; Section 9.5
• 1. The Ozone Layer and the Ionosphere
• 2. The Greenhouse Effect
• 3. Convection
• 4. The Coriolis Effect