AST 101 IN: Solar System

Carleton F. Stewart
PCC: Desert Vista Campus

MW 11:30 AM - 2:10 PM, CRN 11470
Class Syllabus
Thanks to Dr. Dan Bruton for use of the S.F.A. Star Chart
Supplementary Star Chart
Homework Assignment #1
Homework Assignment #2

PowerPoint Lectures

Day 1: Science and Astronomy
Day 2: Ancient Astronomers
Day 3: Classical Astronomy
Day 4: Renaissance Astronomy
Day 5: The Moon from Earth
Day 6: Celestial Navigation & Timekeeping, part 1
Day 7: Celestial Navigation & Timekeeping, part 2
Day 8: Our Solar Neighborhood
Day 9: Universal Motion
Day 10: Energy & Matter
Day 11: Light
Day 12 & 13: Optics and Telescopes
Day 14 & 15: Space Exploration
Day 16: The Solar Nursery
Day 17: Our Sun
Day 18: Our Home Planet
Day 19: The Moon in Detail
Day 20: Mercury
Day 21: Venus
Day 22 & 23: Mars
Day 24: Comparative Planetology
Day 25 & 26: Jupiter
Day 27: Saturn
Day 28: The Outer Worlds
Day 29 & 30: The Solar Vagabonds

Labs

Thanks to Denise Meeks for the originals of several of these labs
Lab 1: Scientific Notation
Lab 2: Conversion Factors
Lab 3: The Moon from Earth
Lab 4: The Moon in its Orbit (observational lab)
Lab 5: Sky Familiarization
Lab 6: Calibration (observational lab)

Scorpius star map (for Lab 6, Fall)
Sagittarius star map (for Lab 6, Fall)
Orion star map (for Lab 6, Spring)

Lab 7: Astronomical Timekeeping
Lab 8: The Scale of the Solar System
Lab 9: Kepler's Laws
Lab 10: Universal Law of Gravitation/ Circular & Escape Velocities
Lab 11: Rotation and Revolution of Earth (observational lab)
Lab 12: The Starfinder
Lab 13: The Moon (web lab)

Moon Observation images (for Lab 13)

Lab 14: A Model of the Visible Planets
Lab 15: Comparative Planetology (web lab)

Geologic Processes images (for Lab 15)

Lab 16: Kepler's Third Law: The Jovian Satellites
Lab 17: Saturn's Rings

Video Summaries

Video 1: Powers of Ten (each student will write a paragraph summarizing the film)
Video 2: Cosmos - The Backbone of Night
Video 3: The Day the Universe Changed - Infinitely Reasonable
Video 4: Elements of Physics - Properties of Light
Video 5: To the Moon

NOVA transcript of "To the Moon"

Video 6: Origins - Earth is Born
Video 7: Savage Sun
Video 8: Planet Earth: The Living Machine
Video 9: The Universe - The Moon
Video 10: The Enigma of Venus
Video 11: The Universe - Mars
Video 12: Planet Earth - The Climate Puzzle
Video 13: The Universe - Jupiter
Video 14: The Universe - Saturn