Astronomy 102: Stars and Galaxies
Announcments
Click Here for Information on Assignments
Click Here to See What's New on the Web Site
Important Information Below; Lab Requirements Updated December 4!
Announcements for specific lab sections: Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday
Final Exams
The final exam will be given at the following two times:
Saturday, Decmeber 13, 3:00-5:00 PM, BSB 1220 (Usual Classroom)
Wednesday, December 17, 12:00-2:00 PM, SC4327 (Stevenson Center Lecture Hall)
You are allowed one page (8.5"x11") of notes. These notes must be your own, written or typed by you and nobody else. You may not copy a notes sheet written by somebody else. Except for this one page, the final will be closed book and closed notes.
There will be a review session on Monday, December 15, at 7:00PM, in SC4327 (one of the Stevenson Center lecture halls). I will have nothing prepared; this will just be a session where I will answer your questions. If you are taking the final on December 13, feel free to drop by with questions any time during the day on Thursday, December 11. I will not be on campus on Friday, December 12. You may also E-mail me if you have any questions.
Current lab status:
If you wish to get lab meeting announcements in E-mail a little after 6:00PM each day, you can subscribe to the A102 Lab Status mailing list. For instance, you might want to subscribe your cellphone's text message address, if you think you might not be able to get to a computer.
Homework/Reading/Exam Announcements
Solutons to exam 4 are now online on the Homework & Exams page.
Solutons to exam 3 are now online on the Homework & Exams page.
Solutons to exam 2 are now online on the Homework & Exams page.
The solutions to the review final are now also available on the Homework & Exams page.
A review final is available on the Homework & Exams page.
What's New on the website
- December 8, 2003
- Added the Spiral Galaxy Rotator
applet shown in class today to the Handouts
page.
- December 5, 2003
- The "zoom-out" video show by Saul Perlmutter in the Seyfert Lecture
is now online on the Handouts page.
- November 19, 2003
- Added a Lecture Questions page
to the Handouts section, where all the
multiple-choice questions I ask in lecture will be posted after the
lecture.
- October 17, 2003
- Added a link to Flatland on the Links page.
- October 6, 2003
- Added the Uranus Orbit lab,
an advanced extra-credit lab.
- October 3, 2003
- The Star-hopping Lab was
updated, adding M31 to list #3. (Coordinates on that list were also
updated to J2000, but that won't affect performance of the lab.)
- September 15, 2003
- The Uranus Lab was upated with a
Finding Chart for the fall
semester.
- September 11, 2003
- Added a link to Dyer Observatory on the Astronomy Links page.
- September 4, 2003
- Added a mailing
list to which you can subscribe yourself if you wish to receive
announcements about the lab status at 6:10PM every Monday-Thursday.
- September 3, 2003
- Added a 3d animation of the Earth orbiting the Sun on the Handouts page.
- September 1, 2003
- Fixed the links to the two movies on the Handouts page.
- August 26, 2003 (up through)
- Updating the site for Fall, 2003
Monday Lab Sections
Last updated 2003-December-4.
Logbooks are due in class on Wednesday, Decmeber 10. Absolutely no late logbooks will be accepted. Make sure you get it turned in if you do not want serious conseuqences for your grade!
Logbooks will be graded as follows. Note that for some labs, the number of points available is more than the number of points the lab will be graded out of. For instance, the Moon lab has 40 points available, but will be graded out of 20 points. This means that we only expected you to get about half of the work of the lab done. If you do more than that, it can make up your having not gotten to the Star Hopping or Spectrosocpy labs. If you did also get half of the Star Hopping lab done, and did most of the Moon lab, the extra work on the Moon lab will effectively count as extra credit.
| Lab | Points Available | Points Graded Out Of |
|---|---|---|
| Sunset | 10* | 10* |
| Mars Orbit | 24 | 24 |
| Moon | 40 | 20 |
| Star Hopping or Spectroscopy | 30 | 15 |
| Sunspots | 35 | 35 |
* - if you are doing the Sunset lab. If you did the Moon Orbit lab, that was completely graded last time around.
For the Mars Orbit lab, you will need to have completed at least 11 total observations this term, spaced by at least 5 days. (If you have more than 11 and they are spaced by less, that is of course fine.) Similarly, for the Sunset lab, you should have 11 total observations, spaced by approximately a week.
Your logbook on December 10 will be graded out of 104 or 94 points (depending on whether you've done the Sunset or Moon Orbit lab). Your total logbook grade will be out of 300 points.
There are two extra-credit labs, the Uranus Orbit Lab (for which very few of you have the necessary observations already to completely do), and the "other" of the Star Hopping or Spectroscopy labs.
You will not receive credit for any extra-credit labs if you received a zero on any regular lab *, or if you had fewer than 5 Moon orbit, Sunset orbit, or Mars orbit observations completed by October 31.
If you do both the Star Hopping and Spetroscopy labs, indicate clearly which one is for normal credit, which one is for extra credit. Otherwise, the TA's will choose which one is easier to grade, grade that for normal credit, and ignore the other one.
* - Note: for Monday, you need to receive 0 on both the Moon and Star Hopping/Spectroscopy labs, or any other assigned lab, to invalidate yourself from extra credit.
Tuesday Lab Sections
Last updated 2003-December-4.
Logbooks are due in class on Wednesday, Decmeber 10. Absolutely no late logbooks will be accepted. Make sure you get it turned in if you do not want serious conseuqences for your grade!
Logbooks will be graded as follows. Note that for some labs, the number of points available is more than the number of points the lab will be graded out of. For instance, the Moon lab has 40 points available, but will be graded out of 20 points. This means that we only expected you to get about half of the work of the lab done. If you do more than that, it can make up your having not gotten to the Star Hopping or Spectrosocpy labs. If you did also get half of the Star Hopping lab done, and did most of the Moon lab, the extra work on the Moon lab will effectively count as extra credit.
| Lab | Points Available | Points Graded Out Of |
|---|---|---|
| Sunset | 10* | 10* |
| Mars Orbit | 24 | 24 |
| Uranus | 30 | 20 |
| Moon | 40 | 20 |
| Star Hopping or Spectroscopy | 30 | 15 |
| Sunspots | 35 | 35 |
* - if you are doing the Sunset lab. If you did the Moon Orbit lab, that was completely graded last time around.
For the Mars Orbit lab, you will need to have completed at least 11 total observations this term, spaced by at least 5 days. (If you have more than 11 and they are spaced by less, that is of course fine.) Similarly, for the Sunset lab, you should have 11 total observations, spaced by approximately a week.
Your logbook on December 10 will be graded out of 124 or 114 points (depending on whether you've done the Sunset or Moon Orbit lab). NOTE: because Tuesday has had worse weather than everybody else, your logbook will only be graded out of 290 points rather than 300. That grade will be scaled up appropriately. If you did not get to the Uranus lab at all, that's fine; if you did more than half of the Moon and/or Star Hopping/Spectroscopy labs, that will make up for at least some of the lost points.
There are two extra-credit labs, the Uranus Orbit Lab (for which very few of you have the necessary observations already to completely do), and the "other" of the Star Hopping or Spectroscopy labs.
You will not receive credit for any extra-credit labs if you received a zero on any regular lab *, or if you had fewer than 5 Moon orbit, Sunset orbit, or Mars orbit observations completed by October 31.
If you do both the Star Hopping and Spetroscopy labs, indicate clearly which one is for normal credit, which one is for extra credit. Otherwise, the TA's will choose which one is easier to grade, grade that for normal credit, and ignore the other one.
* - Note: for Tuesday, you need to receive 0 on both the Moon and Star Hopping/Spectroscopy labs, or any other assigned lab, to invalidate yourself from extra credit. Additionally, for Tuesday only, a 0 on the Uranus lab won't exclude you from extra credit labs.
Wednesday Lab Sections
Last updated 2003-December-4.
Logbooks are due in class on Wednesday, Decmeber 10. Absolutely no late logbooks will be accepted. Make sure you get it turned in if you do not want serious conseuqences for your grade!
Logbooks will be graded as follows. Wednesday had more clear nights than any other section, but unfortunately only had one good clear night to get at the Moon. Therefore, the Moon lab is being graded out of 30 points, even though 40 points are available. (This means that if you did get all of the Moon lab, the last 10 points of that lab effectively count as extra credit.) Why 30 and not 20? This section had enough clear nights that you had time to get to at least part of both the Star Hopping and Spectroscopy Labs, and thus had a better chance than either Monday or Tuesday to do extra credit labs; additionally, unlike those other sections, you had a non-telescope based extra credit lab. Therefore, it would be unfair to those other sections to reduce the Moon lab grade to being out of only 20 points.
| Lab | Points Available | Points Graded Out Of |
|---|---|---|
| Sunset | 10* | 10* |
| Mars Orbit | 24 | 24 |
| Moon | 40 | 30 |
| Star Hopping or Spectroscopy | 30 | 30 |
* - if you are doing the Sunset lab. If you did the Moon Orbit lab, that was completely graded last time around.
For the Mars Orbit lab, you will need to have completed at least 11 total observations this term, spaced by at least 5 days. (If you have more than 11 and they are spaced by less, that is of course fine.) Similarly, for the Sunset lab, you should have 11 total observations, spaced by approximately a week.
Your logbook on December 10 will be graded out of 94 or 84 points (depending on whether you've done the Sunset or Moon Orbit lab). Because of the Moon issue mentioned above, your total logbook grade for the semester will be out of 290 rather than 300 points. The grade will be rescaled accordingly.
There are three extra-credit labs: the Uranus Orbit Lab (for which very few of you have the necessary observations already to completely do), the web-based Sunspot lab, and the "other" of the Star Hopping or Spectroscopy labs.
You will not receive credit for any extra-credit labs if you received a zero on any regular lab *, or if you had fewer than 5 Moon orbit, Sunset orbit, or Mars orbit observations completed by October 31.
If you do both the Star Hopping and Spetroscopy labs, indicate clearly which one is for normal credit, which one is for extra credit. Otherwise, the TA's will choose which one is easier to grade, grade that for normal credit, and ignore the other one.