Topics in this course include: identifying stars and planets in the night sky, the development of ancient and medieval astronomy, celestial coordinate systems, astronomical instrumentation, the Copernican revolution, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, Newton's laws of motion and universal gravitation, stellar parallax, galactic redshifts, Hubble’s law, and elements of modern cosmology.
This website will lead you, week-by-week, through Volume 1 of A Student's Guide using short videos and homework assignments. Each video has a code (in parentheses) that indicates the book volume, chapter, and lecture number. Click on the link for Week 1 to get started! Here are some of the course details:
PHY 101: Introduction to Astronomy meets in S105 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8:00 - 8:50.
Weekly Homework assignments are due at noon on Saturday. Upload a scanned copy of your homework to the PHY 101 course portal. No late homework will be accepted.
Weekly Lab Reports are due by noon on the following Monday. Upload a scanned copy of the relevant pages in your observation book to the PHY 105 course portal. No late lab reports will be accepted.
Weekly Quizzes are on Monday during the class period.
Final exam: A comprehensive final exam will be held during finals week.