Office: Dearborn Observatory #3
Phone: 491-5633
Email: m-ulmer2@northwestern.edu
Office Hours: by appointment, usually open most of (but not all) 9-5 M-F
TA Marc Royster
Office: F120 Tech
e-mail mjroyster@u.northwestern.edu
Office Hours:
Wed 9:30-a.m.-10:30 a..m.
Thursday 11:00 a.m.-12 noon
Review sessions will be held in Tech (Map of 3rd floor of Tech) M345 (go to the link and type in M345 in the Tech room finder search box)
8:00-9:30 Oct 12, Nov 2, and either 18 Nov or 21 Nov, TBD by the class
Observing at Dearborn, 8:00-9:30 p.m. at the beginning of the quarter, switching to 7-8:30 p.m. some time in Oct
All observing sessions are on Monday nights starting 27 September Last session will be 29 November
NO Final Exam: (3
Mid terms and quizzes instead)
We'll have four, 5 minute quizzes on Friday and make up quizzes on
Monday. See below for the dataes.
You can replace one quiz with a paper.
If your paper does not receive a grade higher than you lowest quiz
grade, I’ll keep the quiz grade.
The course grade will be on
3 "mid-term exam" (25%, 25%, and 30%; 80% total) and quizzes (20%). The exams will
consist of multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions. In the case of
missed exams, make-ups will only be considered under the direst of
circumstances and will consist of an oral test. Quizzes will consist of a short
essay questions.
Dearborn Observatory has an 18 inch refractor that
allows spectacular viewing of the planets, the moon and other objects.
Observing sessions will probably be held on Tuesday evenings, but check on
Wednesday (here or in class), 30 March for the day of the week for the
observing sessions. There will be two sessions. Each will be one hour long and
will be limited to 10 students. The first session will be held the second week
of class. The times of the sessions will be announced at the end of the
preceding week and the beginning of the week of the sessions. Sign up sheets
will be made available in class and attendance will be taken at the sessions.
You are allowed to attend more than one session. You should attend at least one session. The session will he held regardless of whether it is cloudy
or not. A tour will be given in any event. Repeat attendance to achieve actual
viewing is encouraged, but not required.
If you are on the boarder line, i.e
within 1-2 percentage point of the next grade level down, and you have not gone
to an observing session I’ll move you down ½ a grade, e.g., form B to B-
Introduction, Read Chapters 3
o
NASA Office of Space Science - the US
space facilities
o
The Naval Observatory Web Page
- "the web site for those who really want to know what time it is"
o
Sky Online - courtesy of Sky and Telescope
magazine
Week 2 (Sept 27-Oct 1)
Read Chapters 3, 4, 5(part)
Quiz on Friday Oct 1
o
Optics Simulators for the
experts
Week
3 (Oct 4-8)
Read Chapters 5(part), 16
(will emphasize part 16.6 and 16.7)
Quiz on
Friday Oct 8
Week 4 (Oct 11-15)
Read Chapters 17
Review on Monday 11 Oct, Review Session 12 Oct 8:00-9:30
pm.
Exam Wed covering chapters 3,4,5, and 16
o
Move
your star on the HR diagram
Week 5 (Oct 18-22)
Read Chapters 17, 18, 19 (part)
o
More about the ISM than you care
for
o
Triggered
Star formation, chicken and egg
Quiz On Friday Oct 22
Week 6 (Oct 25-29)
Read Chapters 19(part) 20, 21 (part)
Quiz on Friday Oct 29
Week 7 (Nov 1-5)
o
Neil de
Grasse Tyson on falling into a black hole
o
Weird
stuff inside a black hole
Review On
Monday, Review session Tuesday
Night 8:00-9:30
Exam On Wednesday Nov 3 covering Chapters
17,18,19 20, (part)21
Read Chapter 22 (part)
Week 8 (Nov 8-13)
o
Lecture (> 1 hr) Black
hole at the Galactic Center
Read Chapters 22, 23, 24
(part)
Week 9 (Nov15-19)
o
Observable Universe with
Sloan Galaxy Images
o
Observable
Universe ot its edge
o
Planck Satellite
First Light
o
French
film that has nothing to do with the the class, but is amusing
Read Chapters 24(part), 25, Review session Thursday
Night Nov 18, 8:00-9:30 p.m.
Review Friday Nov 19
Week 10 Nov
22
Nov 22 Exam Covering
21 (part) 22, 23,24, 25
Happy
Thanksgiving
As a way of introduction,
I would like to begin by making some general comments.
First, Astronomy is
probably the oldest science. Anybody who has looked up at the sky has gazed in
wonderment. Driven both by curiosity and religion, man continued to study the
sky. There were some pretty important religious based questions that were addressed,
such as exactly where did man and the earth stand compared to the universe. On
the curiosity side, we are simply driven on and to learn more even as we learn
more. For, as we delve in to the limitless universe it seems we often uncover
new questions as we answer old ones. The growth in our knowledge of physics in
the past 100 years has allowed us to understand a great deal about the stars,
planets, galaxies and the universe at large. In the distant past when this
knowledge wasn't available, astronomers had more use as astrologers. They told
people the location of the planets etc. The concept of a supernatural being and
how the being's existence explains the existence and characteristics of Earth
has affected people's connection with organized religion and vice versa. The
knowledge of astronomy was useful for debates in this area. The Copernican
Revolution was a classic example. Now we enter a new era of astronomy and
astrophysics where billions of dollars are spent every year on astrophysics
research, and society as a whole is starting to ask tough questions such as why
is this research necessary? What's in it for me? Or why do I find it
interesting? And is it worth that much money? This has placed a
requirement on the professional astrophysicist to emphasize research that
connects directly to the interests of the layman rather than, perhaps, the
esoteric interests of the peer group of astronomers and astrophysicists who
know enough to ask detailed questions. You, as future leaders and taxpayers
will have to answer the question of how much funding to give to astronomy
and astrophysics and why. Two of my goals in this course are to motivate you to
want to learn this material and to teach you enough so that you will be able to
make educated choices about future funding as well as to appreciate future
press releases and discoveries.
There is another reason
for you to take this course, however, and that is to learn how to think like a
scientist. So stop to think a minute now, what does it mean to you when the TV
reporter says "today scientists have announced the discovery of..."
The use of the word scientist had a certain implied reliability, right? Why is
that? And why do most universities require that you take an science class? This is because you are supposed
to receive some training to behave like a scientist, right? Yet mostly the
astronomy, biology and geology courses that are offered are descriptive courses
where the main goal is to teach jargon and facts. The facts will be useful as
noted above, but beyond that this new knowledge will make you more conversant,
and if your child asks you something about the sky someday you'll be able to
give a concrete answer. But is this motivation enough to require that you take
a science class? Probably not. It is better for you to get some training at
acting scientifically. We won't be able to do this rigorously, but I hope you
will actually benefit from this class.
Here are some of the
things that I hope will stick with you:
(1) Be methodical and
take careful notes: since this is the is the art of making reproducible
results, e.g., if you tell somebody exactly how you did something, they should
be able to repeat it and get the same result. As an aside here, there is
implied a certain level of competency in being able to reproduce the results. I
could get a very precise ski lesson and still not be able to make it down a
snow covered slope in one piece. Nevertheless, detailed recording of how the
measurements were done, the material was made, etc is what is needed. One of
the things that makes most of us disbelieve in UFOs, leprechauns, Big Foot etc,
is that the supposed observations are not reproducible in any controlled
fashion. (Sure people continue to report
UFOs, Big Foot etc, but there is no concrete, reproducible evidence of these
things.)
2) Think deductively and
critically. For example, if a marketing person calls you and tells you that if
you follow their advice, you will become rich... Think about it...Why doesn't
the person on the end of the line just follow their own advice? OR thinking
critically: a football player a few years ago had a sore back and the team had
him take 40 Advils a day. What
was he thinking? Didn't the read the bottle for directions? Also when somebody
provides you with a fact that is important to you, how do they know? What is
their reference, or how did they make the measurement? This will even allow you
to pick out exaggerated claims such as "Scientists discover Black
Hole....''. How did they know?
(3) Avoid as often as you
can qualitative thinking and descriptions versus quantitative descriptions,
e.g. it's a long way to Tipperary..what does "long way" mean?
(4) Always have an idea
of where you are going, why are you going there and a schedule for achieving
those goals. No scientific project that takes more than a few hours or days can
be done on time and within budget without systematic planning, project
justification, budgets etc.
As we learn about the
Milk Way Galaxy we will find it is huge. And thus unlike the solar system where
we can send satellites (or even people) to explore the planets, moons asteroid
and comets, we can at the very best only hope to reach the nearest stars. For,
at 1/10 the speed of light, about as fast as we can ever imagine achieving with
a rocket, it would take 40 years
to reach the closet star. To
get a picture of our galaxy then would akte afoce about 10,000-100,000
years! Clearly this in not
feasible, so an interesting questions for our class are: how do we know what
our galaxy looks like and what is
it made up of?
Imagine, then, for a
moment that we are intelligent
amoebae living ½ ups a 20 year old oak tree trunk. We only live for a second to two, but we live fast so we’ve
developed a technology to look through the tree and well as outward. We have no
hope to traveling proportionally far in the tree trunk nor do we have much
motivation given our life spans.
For, even if we could achieve high velocities (for us), it would take
tens to hundreds of millions of lifetime so go around the trunk once. We have figured out via remote
sensing that we are on a thing that has leaves,, and bark and branches. Then we
have to look out and see if we could find
something that looks like what we think we live in. We see grass and
conclude, nope, not grass. Then we see bushes, rocks and maybe even an
house. Nope, not those. either, we conclude Then we see a red bud tree. Note not that either, but
closer. Our habitant is related at
least. Then finally we find a 20 year old oak tree and we by virtue of establishing
the distance to the oak tree, determine that its size and shape meets the
description of our own tree. How we figured out distance in our own tree and
then to the next trees was tricky, but we did it.
Thus for example about in
the early 1800’s when astronomers still didn’t know what we lived in. the Messier catalog was made (by M. Charles Messier) to list objects
that looked fuzzy and didn’t move with respect to the “fixed” stars. Therefore at that time these fuzzy
object were judged uninteresting. Thus, the catalog was judged good so you
didn’t mistake theses boring objects for something that looks and fuzzy and
moves in the sky with respect to the background stars , ie. comets. Now those fuzzy things have turned to
be galaxies and one of the most famous is M31 (number 31 in the catalog), also
called Andromeda.
