Astronomy

Here you can find all my resources, including many free downloads –

Introduction

Note taking and journaling techniques

Viewing space from here on Earth (this is where it all starts, folks!)

EWS A quick and dirty guide to backyard astronomy. PCWorld

How to get started in amateur astronomy. Instructables

How light pollution makes it difficult to see the stars

The size and scale of the universe – An interactive app (We spent two class periods exploring this!!)

Astronomy and science

Astronomy uses the scientific method

Measuring lengths in the metric system – Easiest and most intuitive way to understand it 🙂

Measuring mass in the metric system – Yup. Just as easy, again!

So I made a conversion error, big deal… – What’s the worst that could happen?

Difference between astronomy and astrology

Observing the sky

Define how we locate our position here on Earth

Then what we see when we look up into the sky.

A great circle, meridian, latitude and longitude.

Locating Places in the Sky – . Instead of latitude and longitude we use declination and right ascension.

The (apparent, fictitious) celestial sphere.

Celestial Poles and Celestial Equator

The Earth turning underneath us – and Foucault pendulum

Sunrise Sunset: The science and culture

Stuff in our solar system

The origin of planet’s names: Greek and Roman mythology

Prove that the Earth is a sphere (all planets are spherical)

Moons

Moons – What exactly is a moon?

Why are some moons spherical while others are shaped like potatoes? (Honors)

How many moons does Earth have?

Lunar motions (Libration, axial precession, apsidal precession, nodal precession

Asteroid, comets, and meteors

The Solar System

Solar system: Our earliest ideas

Orbits and motion

Orbits (how planets orbit the sun)

Planetary orbits and barycenters

Proof that Earth revolves around the Sun: stellar aberration

Stars

Aging into gianthood – Red giants

Neutron stars, pulsars, and magnetars

Galaxies

Exoplanets (planets outside of our solar system)

Super Earths – Earth-like worlds outside our solar system

Could we actually travel to other stars? The real physics of interstellar travel

Where did it all being?

The universe

History of Astronomy

Ancient Greeks (tbd)

Ancient Mesopotamian science – Even 4000 and 3000 years ago the forefathers of western civilization were learning about the motion of the stars in surprising detail!

Ulugh Beg, medieval Samarkand/Uzbekistan, astronomer – 15th century CE

Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler and Galileo Galilei. Solar System: Medieval ideas,15th and 16th centuries CE. S

Special topics

SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Proof that the Earth is revolving

The Physics of Interstellar Travel

Gravitational repulsion and the Dipole Repeller

Sims & Apps

Other online Astronomy courses

Astronomy: The Sky and the Solar System Lumen Learning

Galileo and Einstein: Lectures An older website course, but so very well thought out!

Learning Standards

The largest objects in the sky!

Look up at the night sky – Are there immensely huge things that are just a bit too faint for the human eye to see? You betcha!

Check out this amazing composite photo. This shows the actual apparent size of deep space objects, in our night sky, if only they were brighter.

http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1xwnf7/actual_size_of_deep_space_objects_if_they_were/

Here are the same object labeled

The images are in scale with one another, including the Moon, but not to the Milky Way background.

1. The Moon.
2. Andromeda Galaxy.
3. Triangulum Galaxy.
4. Orion Nebula.
5. Lagoon Nebula.
6. Pinwheel Galaxy.
7. Sculptor Galaxy.
8. Supernova remnant 1006.
9. Veil Nebula.
10. Helix Nebula.
11. Sombrero Galaxy.
12. Crab Nebula.
13. Comet Hale-Bopp (c. 1997)
14. Venus.
15. Jupiter.
16. International Space Station.

Astronomy Amateur 3 V2CC BY-SA 3.0view terms
User Halfblue on en.wikipedia

What is an astronomy?

An astronomer admires the beauty of the stars and other celestial objects and wants to learn what they are and how they work. An astronomer is a scientist who tries to understand and interpret the Universe beyond Earth, and the Earth within the Universe. Using observational tools like space and ground-based observatories, computers and the good old paper and pencil, astronomers attempt to build up a picture, not only of what the Universe is like today, but what it was like billions of years ago, right back to the “Big Bang”.

To do this Astronomers have to understand the behaviour of matter in conditions that simply do not exist on Earth, whether at extreme temperatures or involving exotic objects and particles. They must use whatever kind of light, from radio to gamma rays, and particles (from cosmic rays to neutrinos) make it to Earth, along with sophisticated computers to piece together what happens beyond our planet.

Observational astronomers might look for new planets, try to understand stars, galaxies, black holes, and other phenomena, or try to map the entire sky. More theoretical researchers might measure magnetic fields or simulate the structural build-up of the stars, figure out how galaxies formed and how the expansion of the Universe evolved. To summarise, they build models of the Universe from fundamental physics and endeavour to make it understandable.

+ International Astronomical Union website

Quotes

“Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought– particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things.”

– Woody Allen

“Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you’ll get ten different answers, but there’s one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won’t just take us. It’ll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars.”

– Writer J. Michael Straczynski, from a character’s speech (Commander Sinclair) in Babylon 5, season 1, “Infection”

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