On-Line Lecture Notes

These notes will be undergoing some reconstruction as the quarter goes on.

The PPT files are set up as web pages, and will work best using IE 6.0+. My add-on notes and comments given in class are generally not included in these web pages, although some pages do show notes if you are not in "slideshow" mode. You had to be there to get all of the pertinent information. Some of the images are large; high-speed ethernet or cable modem advised.

Unit 1

Introducing the Scale of the Universe and Our View of the Night Sky
    ****Scale of Universe and Night Sky Autumn 06 29 September 2006
Earth, Moon, Sun, and Sky NO Moon phases, tides, or eclipse stuff this quarter.
Gravity, Energy, Forces
    ****Matter and Energy 2 October 2006
    ****Gravity and Momentum 4 October 2006
The Electromagnetic Spectrum (Light) and Telescopes
    ****Light and Blackbody Spectra 6 October 2006
    ****Light, Kirchoff's Laws, Doppler Shift 9 October 2006
    ****Telescopes 11 October 2006

Unit 2

The Sun, A Model Star, Our Star
    ****Earth-Sun Connection [Note: some of the video links are huge.] 18 October 2006
    ****Solar Interior [Note: some of the video links are huge.] 20 October 2006
Introduction to Stars
    **** Introduction to Stars: brightness, magnitudes, parallax, luminosity 23 October 2006
    **** Introduction to Stars: Measuring their Properties and the spectral sequence 25 October 2006
    ****Stars: Magnitudes, Distances, Magnitude Equation, Spectral Classes, Spectroscopic Distances 27 October 2006
The Interstellar Medium (ISM) and Starbirth
    ****ISM and Starbirth 30 October 2006
Using Color Magnitude Diagrams of Star Clusters for Ages and Distances
    ****Lives of Stars: Birth and Middle Age (main sequence) 1 November 2006
    ****Ages of Star Clusters from Observations 3 November 2006
The Life and Death of Stars
    ****Evolution of Low-Mass Stars 6 November 2006
    ****Evolution of Massive Stars 8 November 2006 (with a review of the evolution of the Sun, ignore very last slide)
Neutron Stars, Black Holes, and Curved Spacetime
    ****Massive-Star Death 13 November 2006

Unit 3

Our Galaxy: The Milky Way
    ****Variable Stars (there are some very large images in this lecture: 1.3 meg+)
    ****Observations of the Milky Way and What They Tell Us 22 November 2006
    ****More on the Milky Way 27 November 2006
Galaxies
    ****Birth and Evolution of Galaxies 29 November 2006
Cosmic Distance Ladder
    ****Introduction to the Cosmic Distance Scale 1 December 2006
The Runaway Universe 4 December 2006 Transcript
Origin of the Universe [much of this information is not relevant this quarter]
    ****Origin of the Universe 6 December 2006 (plus end of Monday's lecture)
Life in the Universe