ASTRONOMY 497A

Fall Quarter 2005 Fridays 1:30-2:20 PAA 212

Instructor: Paula Szkody C311 PAB 543-1988

Web Address: http://www.astro.washington.edu/astro497a/

Speakers -- Topics -- Reading

Sept 30 --- Prof. Paula Szkody --- Research on Cataclysmic Variables --- Ch. 2 in Cataclysmic Variable Stars (Warner) and AJ, 126, 1499, 2003 szkody.ppt

October 7 -- Dave Joswiak --- Explorations with an Electron Microscope

October 14 --- Prof. Zeljko Ivezic --- Science Projects with SDSS --- http://www.astro.washington.edu/sdss/

October 21 --- Prof. Eric Agol --- Planetary transits

October 28 -- Prof. Bruce Balick --- Planetary Nebulae--- Scientific American, 291, 26 July 2004

November 4 -- Dr. Annie Mejia --- Formation of Planets --- http://depts.washington.edu/astrobio/about/ab_009.pdf

November 11 - Veteran's Day, no class

November 18 -- Prof. Woody Sullivan --- Astrobiology --- http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/roadmap/goals_and_objectives.html and http://astrobio.net/

November 25 - Thanksgiving vacation

December 2 -- Prof. Suzanne Hawley --- Flare Stars ---

December 9 -- Dr. Andy Becker --- Detecting Variability

Course Requirements

For each talk, write a brief paragraph summarizing the information in the talk and give a possible research project that you would like to pursue in that area of research. Summaries will be collected on Nov 4 for the first 5 talks and are due Dec 14 for the last 4.