On to the Sun!

We only have 9 school days left before the final exam, so we're probably going to skip over Ch 7 (the Jovian planets) and move right on to Ch. 9 (The Sun). It's way more interesting and if you got the major themes of the chapter on terrestrial planets, then you could probably teach yourself the major facets about the gas giants if you are so inclined.

I know a lot of you will be staying on with me for the 2nd Astronomy class next semester in which we study larger scale astronomy like stars & galaxies. The content is different, but the way the class is taught really isn't, so if you're struggling right now, you'll need to change something if you hope to be successful in the next class.

I haven't forgot about hosting stargazing parties either, but the weather has been awful these past few weeks. I hope to get something organized soon because there are a lot of planets to view right now. The only problem is that you have to stay up pretty late to catch them all.

The end is nigh

Less than 4 academic weeks left to go in the course and still a lot left to cover. We're going to blaze right through our discussion of the planets this week and next and start fresh with a study of the Sun after break.

There will be an opportunity for extra credit using the APOD website that I will talk more about before break.

Make sure to read Chapters 6 & 7 in preparation for a (brief) test next week.

6 weeks left

We wrapped up Ch. 4 with our work on Extrasolar Planets before the Thanksgiving break, so now we're moving on into Ch. 5 and our study of the Earth & Moon. It might seem weird to talk about the Earth in an Astronomy class, but if we're going to study other planets, it's best to have a firm grasp about the one we live on first. The gas planets might not share a lot in common with us, but they have moons that are a lot more like the Earth than you might think.

Also starting this week will be a presentation based assignment using the Astronomy Picture of the Day website. You'll get more info in the next few days, but essentially, each student will need to give a brief presentation explaining the daily picture at some point between now and the end of the semester.

Tying it all together

So we talked about waves and different types of electromagnetic radiation. Then we talked about how telescopes worked and this week we tied it all together with an activity aimed at underscoring WHY we use telescopes designed to "see" the different ranges of the EM spectrum.

For those keeping score at home, the test covering chapters 2 (waves) and 3 (telescopes) will probably be on Wednesday next week (11/2). If you still haven't read the chapter, be sure to do so this weekend.

Week 7 update

Somebody needs to remind me to go over the Waves HW Q with the class, because there were some dramatic shortcomings that became clear as I graded that. Please be sure to read through the portions of Ch. 2 that we covered (ignore the parts about models of the atom and spectra).

We've started Ch. 3, and I hope the optics lab gave you some hands one experience with how the guts of a telescope work. The notes that we went through on Thursday on are the website (Schedule --> October) as is everything else we've done. Again, read Ch. 3 over the weekend if you haven't done so already and be ready for another HW Q next week.

For anyone who asks about extra credit: I offered a chance to earn back HALF of the points lost on the Ch. 1 Test and only 5 people took advantage of that offer. You have to be doing your best to earn CREDIT before we concern ourselves with *extra* credit.

Stargazing Recap

So only 1 of you showed up to the stargazing session. I can't stress enough how rare of an opportunity this is - before I started teaching I had only looked through a decent telescope once while I was on vacation in Hawaii. It's an amazing experience to see things like the moons of Jupiter and the Orion Nebula and if you pass it up now, you'll be kicking yourself later.

Please read through the first half of Ch. 2 about the basics of waves. It's short, so read it twice. If you get bored, go read Ch. 3 about telescopes.

You've seen a full unit in the class, so you should have a better understanding of what you need to do to meet my expectations. An important point: turning in your homework is not the same as doing it.

Massive Solar Storm

We'll talk more about the specifics toward the end of the semester, but long story short - there was a massive eruption of material from the surface of the Sun a few days ago and it traversed the 93 million miles to Earth and slammed into our atmosphere yesterday. The result? The Norther Lights. For more info, check out this link:
http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Gordon-McLellan-aurora-borealis1_1317092998.jpg

In other news, we're nearly complete with our intro unit which is made up of the prologue chapter and ch. 1 in the book. The next will most likely be in the middle of next week. If you haven't read either chapter yet, you still have time. Anything in the book is fair game, but the test will focus on the concepts we've discussed in class.