COURSE SYLLABUS
ASTRONOMY
5
Ticket
No. 3124
Summer 2008
INSTRUCTOR: Richard
Rains
Voice
Mail: (818) 364-7702
email: rgrains@yahoo.com
OFFICE HOURS: M-TH
4:00 – 4:35 p.m..
Lab Book (required):
"Astronomy 5 Lab
Exercises" available in book store
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course involves familiarization with
astronomical instruments, observation techniques, motions of the sky, the
celestial sphere, star charts, constellations, lunar and planetary orbits and
surfaces, stellar spectra, and classification of galaxies.
STUENT LEARNING
OUTCOMES:
1. Proficiency in the use scientific instruments, with emphasis on setup, aiming, focusing and maintenance of astronomical telescopes, as evidenced by written lab reports.
2. Skills in observing and sketching celestial objects by use of telescopes, with attention to shapes, lighting, color and structure, and their interpretation, as evidenced by written lab reports.
3. Ability to apply the scientific method with emphasis on its practical application, as evidenced by completed worksheets and their analysis and by a final examination.
Labs performed
during the semester may include the following, not necessarily in this order:
·
Angle
Measurement and Constellation Recognition
·
Optics and
Telescope Theory
·
Star Charts
·
Observing
the Moon
·
Observing
the Planets Saturn, Jupiter and Mars
·
Observing
Nebulae
·
Observing
Clusters
·
Field of
View
·
Kepler's
Laws
·
Stellar
Spectra
·
H-R Diagram
·
Campus
Service Night
Daily Quizzes: Every day, the session will begin with
a brief, ten-minute quiz about the activity of the previous day. This quiz will
be given at 7:30 p.m.. Anyone arriving after 7:45 p.m. will not be allowed to
take the quiz. There will be no make-ups.
However, at the end of the Summer session, the two lowest quiz grades
will be dropped.
GRADES: The final grade will be determined by
the average grade of the lab reports (40%) , the average grade of the weekly
quizzes (30%), and the final examination (30%). The final exam is an
open-lab-report exam, so good reports will greatly aid in successfully taking
the final exam.
Things you will need to bring to EVERY class MEETING:
• Star chart
• WARM CLOTHING!!
• sketching pencils and paper
LAB REPORTS
Each lab report
is due the day after the activity is performed. Late lab reports will be reduced
in grade by 10% each day they are late.
Lab reports
should consist of the following, in this order:
Title Page: Include your name in the
upper right, title of activity at center, followed by date the activity was
performed; lab partners' names at lower right. The title should be descriptive
of the activity performed. For Example, use “The Planet Venus” instead of “Lab
No. 3”.
Data Page: Include all sketches and
measurements made during the activity. Measurements should be recorded in ink,
while sketches may be done in pencil. Data should be initialed by the
instructor the night of the activity before you leave.
Analysis: Discuss everything you did, why
you did it, and what the result was. Discuss each sketch, describing what you
saw in some detail. Emphasize your visual impressions; colors, shadows, shapes,
positions, etc. Describe what you learned from each activity. The analysis must
be printed out on a computer printer, double-spaced, with a reasonable font
size.
Missed labs may
not be made-up and will be recorded as zero. However, the single lowest lab
report grade will be dropped at the end of the semester.
If a student
misses a lab activity, he/she is still responsible for questions about that
activity on the final examination. A photocopy of another student’s report may
be used during the final exam.
FIELD TRIPS: There will be three field trips:
1) Griffith Observatory: Tuesday June 17
2) Templin Highway viewing site: Wed June 25 and
3) Templin Highway viewing site: Thurs July 3
Date of Final
Examination: July 10.
Last
Day to drop the class without a "W": June
18
Last
Day to drop the class with a "W":
July 3
June 9: Lab intro, Constellation recognition, use of quadrant, star colors by naked eye.
June 10: (1st quarter) Care and use of telescopes, basic star chart usage, star colors by scope
June 11: Gibbous Moon observation
June 12: ? & – binary easy
-----------------------------------------------------------
June 16: star finder usage – binary difficult
June 17: field trip 1 - griffith
June 18: (full) Full moon & “Night Sky” exercises
June 19: spectroscopy & Saturn and Mars
-------------------------------------------------------------
June 23: telescope optics
June 24: Mars topography
June 25: last quarter – field trip 2 - Templin
June 26: H-R diagram
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June 30: Kepler’s laws
July 1: work sheet and ?
July 2: (new)
July 3: field trip 3 - Templin
-------------------------------------------------------------
July 7: Jupiter?
July 8: moon observation 2
July 9: first quarter – campus service night
July 10: Final Exam