This is the site for Astronomy 101. Class information is listed on the left and course assignments, policies, and documentation are listed on the right. I will be adding links and material throughout the semester so check back often. Assignments will be updated weekly and it is your responsibility to make sure you keep track of them. I will be posting them here for easy access. I will also be posting lecture notes and solutions to the exams and homeworks here. Exam and homework material will come from both the lectures and the reading assignments, if something is in a required reading I expect you to study it, do not rely on the lectures alone as study material. Since I'm a bit of a stickler on requiring self study I will respond to any emails quickly so if something is confusing you email me, come to my office hours, or schedule hours to see me. I am here to help you understand this material.
This course should be a fun experience for you and I encourage you to contact me if you have any issues or topics you are interested in learning about. I feel quite strongly that learning and teaching proceed in a symbiotic fashion, the best way for me to become a better teacher is for you to tell me what you do or don't like about my style, feedback from you is extremely important, please contact me with anything.
| A Brief Review Of Mathematics |
| The History Of Astronomy |
| The Day & Night Sky |
| The Tides & The Seasons |
| How We Observe The Universe & The Nature Of Light |
| A Bit of Physics, Gravity, Newton, Angular Momentum, & More |
| Our Solar System, Its Origins and Constituents |
| Extrasolar Planets & The Possibility Of Life Elsewhere In Our Galaxy (Astrobiology) |
I tend to like to focus on the formation of the solar system, extrasolar planets, and the possibility of life elsewhere. I will be happy to cover things that interest you if you ask me to. If it involves stars, galaxies, or cosmology then stay tuned for ASTR 102. There will be a certain level of memorization involved but I don't much care if you want to keep thinking of Pluto as a planet as long as you ultimately understand why Astronomers no longer do.
Everyone goes to school for different reasons, mine was that I've always been curious about things. I started my academic career, many years ago, at a community college. I spent two years taking courses at Montgomery County Community College before moving to Temple University where I pursued a degree in Psychology with the end goal of becoming a lawyer. During my time at Temple University I developed a strong interest in astronomy and decided that I would prefer to learn about the universe and its origins more than I wanted to become a lawyer. I finished my degree in Psychology and started over. I went on to finish an undergraduate degree in Physics with a minor in mathematics. After my undergraduate career I moved to the University of Colorado's Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences department. I will be defending my doctorate degree this coming April. If there is one piece of advice I like to offer to students (other than work hard) it is to be flexible with your future, it is ok if you don't know what you want to do tomorrow.
If you are using Firefox or Mozilla please be aware that it does not incorporate support for viewing PDF files without extensions. You have several options in this case:
1: Use a different browser, I like Safari. (Suggested)
2: Right click on the link below to download the page contents as a PDF.
3: If you really want to see the document in a browser window follow the following instruction:
For MAC users PDFs on a Mac In Firefox
For Windows users PDFs on a Windows Machine in Firefox
Click on the image to buy it at Amazon.com, note you will NEED a Mastering Astronomy account for this course.
Site Last Updated on Wednesday, March 10th 2010.