Basic stuff:

• syllabus
• form for doing observatory extra credit
• FAQ
• Stuff you need:
  1. Get an iclicker.
  2. Get a subscription to MasteringAstronomy.
  3. Get a workbook.
  4. Get a textbook.
  But note that a cheap and easy option is to get items 2, 3, and 4 together in a bundle at the bookstore. Item 1 is at the bookstore too but comes separately; I can give you a rebate coupon for $10 to offset some of the cost.
• Having trouble with the material? There are a lot of options:
  • See me during my office hours in MAP 305D either on W 6-7:15pm or on R 5-6:15pm. Or you can email me to make an appointment.
  • Visit one of our TAs. Zoe is available online on M 3-5pm, W 12-1pm, and F 7-9pm. Pejman is available in MAP 307 on R 9-11 am. Their g mail addresses are ast2002.help and pejofpower, respectively.
  • Visit SARC, where there are 3 people who are paid to help with this course. Their schedule is M 9:30-12, M 4:30-7, T 4:30-6:30, W 11-7, R 4:30-6:30, F 9:30-12. Also, one of the tutors is running a facebook page called "Manny's Astronomy."

Lectures: Uploaded as needed.

In-Class Assignments:

Columns: "#" is number of the assignment. "Date" is the date. "CQ?" is + if we did clicker questions, blank if not. "LT?" is + if we did a lecture-tutorial, blank if not. "#CQ" indicates how many clicker questions there were. "#M" indicates how many marks there were from those clicker questions. "Pts." says how many total points toward your course grade come from the assignment. "Sol." links to the solutions for that days work. "How graded" encodes how the marks for that day were allocated among the clicker questions, with "0" meaning that question didn't count, "P1" meaning you got 1 mark for just clicking in any answer, and "PC2" meaning that you got 1 mark for answering and 1 more mark for getting it right.

Here's an example: #CQ = 4, #M = 4, Pts. = 3, and "How graded" is "1-P1, 2-0, 3-PC2, 4-P1." This means there were 4 clicker questions that day and you could earn up to 4 marks with those questions. You could earn 1 mark for question 1, 2 for question 3, and 1 for question 4. Question 2 was completely ungraded. You could earn up to 3 points toward your course grade and the conversion is: points you earned = (marks you earned/#M)*Pts.

Homework:

Supplemental info:

• Chapter 1
  • Solutions to Prather et al. workbook pages relevant to Chapter 1 are here.
  • There is a tutorial on MasteringAstronomy on the scale of the Universe. Don't worry too much about the details of the math, but do try to understand the differences in scales.
  • Do you want to see the "Powers of Ten" video that was shown in class on Aug 31? A version of it is on YouTube.
  • There are 3 self-test "quizzes" on MasteringAstronomy. Questions that are relevant for what we've covered are listed as follows. Basic Reading Quiz: 1-4, 7-13, 15. Conceptual Quiz: 1-2, 4-6, 9-11, 13. Visual Quiz: Parts 1-3, 5. Click on "Study Area" and then the quizzes are on the left side navigation bar.
• Chapter 2
  • MOST IMPORTANT STUFF:
  • Solutions to Prather et al. workbook pages relevant to Chapter 2 are here.
  • Applets: 1 (from class Sept 9), 2, 3 (from class Sept 14), 4. Instructions.
  • There is a movie, "The Celestial Sphere," on MasteringAstronomy that gives an explanation of this construct. Ignore the talk in part 2 about "declination" and "right ascension". (Go to "Study Area" and then click on "Movies.")
  • There is an interactive figure on MA about the celestial sphere -- figure 2.10. Instructions are here.
  • I've made a document containing some sample questions from sections 1 and 2 of this chapter. Section 1: here are the questions, and here are the answers. Section 2: here are the questions, and here are the answers. Section 3: here are the questions, and here are the answers. (The question files are big, sorry.)
  • There are 3 self-test "quizzes" on MasteringAstronomy. Questions that are relevant for what we've covered are listed as follows. Reading Quiz: 1-5, 7-12, 14-16, 18. Conceptual Quiz: 1, 4-9, 11-15, 18-19. Visual Quiz: 1, 2, 4-10. Click on "Study Area" and then the quizzes are on the left side navigation bar.
  • There are three tutorials on MasteringAstronomy that will help you: "Seasons", "Eclipses", and "Phases of the Moon". Click on "Study Area" and then "Self-Guided Tutorials".
  • EXTRA STUFF:
  • Here is the short clip showing the phases of the Moon using a lamp and a ball.
  • If you want to make a star chart customized for your location and date, try this site: Heavens Above. Instructions.
  • If you bought the textbook, it came with a CD of software called "Voyager SkyGazer". It's kind of a planetarium software that you can use this to visualize what's going on in the night sky. Some instructions are here. Note that you can also download free planetarium software from various places that's just as good. You can try them out to see which you like best: Stellarium, Skychart, Carinasoft. You may have also heard of Google Sky -- here's an instructional video -- which is cute to play with but not quite what we need.
• Chapter 3
  • The applet on Kepler's laws is available. Here are instructions.
  • If you want to get a better understanding of why retrograde motion -- the phenomenon -- happens and why it doesn't really mean that planets have to physically go backwards in the orbit, check out this animation. (It is also possible to show retrograde motion using Stellarium or Voyager SkyGazer.) Mars and Earth go around their orbits, but watch what happens when Earth starts to lap Mars. We catch up and speed by it. While this happens Mars is still moving forward along its orbit but to us it seems to be going backwards. This is similar to you driving on the road and passing another car. You know the other car is moving forward too, but to you it looks like its going backwards.
  • Here is a set of extra worksheets on Kepler's laws. Note that while Exercise #4 might require a tiny bit of math, I won't ask you such math as intensive as this on an exam. Here are the solutions.
  • You can use this concept map to learn some of the connections between the historical concepts in Chapter 3. (Ignore the fact that it says AST 2002H for Spring 2009 -- it's an old assignment.) Some solutions (thought of course there are several possible solutions for each sentence) are here.
  • There is a tutorial on MasteringAstronomy -- "Orbits and Kepler's Laws" -- that might be helpful for you.
  • There are 3 self-test "quizzes" on MasteringAstronomy. Questions that are relevant for what we've covered are listed as follows. Reading Quiz: 1-2, 5-15. Conceptual Quiz: 4-14. Visual Quiz: 3-6, 8-10.
• Chapter 4
  • Here is a worksheet about gravity on the various planets of the Solar System.
  • There is a tutorial on MasteringAstronomy called "Motion and Gravity" that you may find useful. Not all of it is relevant to what we covered in class though; focus on the Introduction, Lesson 2, Exercises 1 through 7, and the Summary.
  • Here are a couple extra worksheets about gravity. And here are the solutions.
  • There are 3 self-test "quizzes" on MasteringAstronomy. Questions that are relevant for what we've covered are listed as follows. Reading Quiz: 4-5, 15-16, 19-20. Conceptual Quiz: 1-5, 12-14, 19-20. Visual Quiz: 1, 7, 8-10.
• Chapter 6
  • MA has some tutorials for this chapter. Lessions 1 and 3 in "Formation of the Solar System" are useful; you can skip Lesson 2. All of "Detecting Extrasolar Planets" is useful, though don't worry if you don't understand what an absorption line in a spectrum is (that's chapter 5).

Test info:

• Test #1.
  • I have posted the scores for test #1 on myUCF Grades. I didn't change them from the preliminary numbers from before. There are 2 numbers, one for the number of questions you got right out of 35, and another for how many points you get toward your course grade. The conversion from # right to points is: points = 39.7516 + 1.82571 * (# right). I know the numbers sound odd, but they're based on the statistical distribution of scores. This makes the average across the class an 80 (i.e., the B-/B border). Also, effectively it means that if you got 27 or more right, you got an A- or A; if you got 21-26 right, you got a B-/B/B+; if you got 16-20 right, you got a C-/C/C+; if you got 12-15 right, you got a D/D+; and if you got 11 or fewer right, you got an F.
  • If you took the test and your score doesn't appear, DON'T PANIC. It's probably because I haven't seen your test yet or because there was an error on your scantron.
  • If you didn't get the grade you would have liked -- you shouldn't panic. Remember that in this course we drop your lowest test grade out of the 4 you take. Just make sure to come to the remaining 3 tests. The first test of the semester is usually the hardest, for many people.