The Heavens and the Earth

PHY 101: Introduction to Astronomy

Week 13

Thanksgiving break; no class on Thursday or Friday.

Read: A new theory of gravity (Chap. 23). We'll spend some time on this reading from Einstein on Monday, and then move on to some light reading from Gamow's Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland for Wednesday.

Quiz: Monday. Covers Leavitt and Slipher.

Homework exercises: Thanksgiving break starting Thursday; no homework.

Laboratory exercises: Shadow mechanics and Eclipse laboratory. Also: Keep up with your Jupiter and Planetary observations. They are due at the end of next week! Lunar observations are due by the end of this week!

A new theory of gravity (1 video):

Euclid, Gauss, and Mercury's orbit (no videos yet…):

A finite universe with no boundary (no videos yet…):

Intro. to Astronomy

Return to course home page.

Course syllabus

What is our place in the universe? This course provides a chronological/historical introduction to the sciences of astronomy and cosmology. The required textbook is A Student's Guide Through the Great Physics Texts, Volume 1: The Heavens and the Earth

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.

PHY 105: Astronomy Laboratory meets in room S115 every Monday from 7:00 - 9:50 pm. Click here to download a free copy of the workbook we will be using for lab.

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.

Office Hrs: TBA

Download Stellarium Software to do stargazing on your desktop or mobile device.

Subscribe to Earthsky to get daily updates of what's in the sky.

Milwaukee Clearsky Chart predicts when our city will have good weather for astronomical observing.

Logger Pro 3.15 Download for Wndows 10, 8.1, 7, and for macOS 10.14, 10.13, 10.12, 10.11, 10.10. For more details on how to download and install Logger Pro click here.