If you'd like information on the course or teaching materials
beyond what's listed below, feel free to email me at john.whelan@astro.rit.edu.
Lecture Topics
-
Tuesday, January 10: Introduction and Overview
-
Thursday, January 12: Tour of the Universe and Making Math
Work for You
-
Tuesday, January 17: Motions on the Sky
(and Models to Explain Them)
-
Thursday, January 19: Heliocentric Model:
Galileo's Observations and Kepler's Calculations
-
Tuesday, January 24: Galileo, Newton, and the Birth of
Classical Physics
-
Thursday, January 26: Orbits and Gravity:
Kepler and Galileo from a Newtonian Perspective
-
Tuesday, January 31: Coördinates on the Earth and the
Sky
-
Thursday, February 2: Calendars, tides, and eclipses
-
Tuesday, February 7: Overview of the Solar System
-
Thursday, February 9: Temperatures and Ages of Planets
-
Thursday, February 16: A Crash Course in Geology and Intro
to Venus
-
Tuesday, February 21: Mars
-
Thursday, February 23: The Mars Exploration Rover Mission
-
Thursday, March 2: The Galilean Satellites
-
Tuesday, March 7: When is a World a Planet: Titan and Pluto
-
Thursday, March 9: Asteroids and Comets
-
Tuesday, March 14: The Kuiper Belt
-
Thursday, March 16: Background Info on Stars
-
Tuesday, March 21: Determining Stellar Properties
-
Tuesday, March 28: The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram
-
Thursday, March 30: Stellar Evolution
-
Tuesday, April 4: The End of the Stellar Lifespan
-
Thursday, April 6: Black Holes (guest lecture by Carl Brans)
-
Tuesday, April 11: The Death of Stars
-
Tuesday, April 18: Supernovae and Pulsars: from Observation
to Explanation
-
Thursday, April 20: The Search for Gravitational Waves
Lecture notes from previous Astronomy courses
Homeworks
-
Chapter One -- Assigned January 17, Due January 24
-
Chapter Two -- Assigned January 24, Due January 31
-
Chapter Three -- Assigned January 31, Due February 7
-
Chapter Six -- Assigned February 14, Due February 21
-
Chapter Nine -- Assigned February 21, Due March 2
-
Chapter Eleven -- Assigned March 2, Due March 9
-
Chapter Twelve -- Assigned March 9, Due March 16
-
Chapter Seventeen -- Assigned March 23, Due March 30
-
Chapter Twenty-One -- Assigned March 30, Due April 6
-
Chapter Twenty-Two -- Assigned April 11, Due April 20
