Professor: Loris Magnani Office: Physics 238 Phone: 542-2876

E-Mail: loris@physast.uga.edu

Teaching Assistants: Beth Wennerstrom & Adam Schneider

Class: Tuesday 8:00 – 9:45 PM and/or Wednesday 7:55 – 9:50 PM. When we meet in class, the room will be Physics 327; when we use the telescopes, we will meet at the Intramural Fields.

NOTE: You may come at either scheduled class time (regardless of what section you signed up for), or even both times during the week.

Office Hours: By appointment: e-mail or call

Text: The Cambridge Star Atlas – 3^rd Edition – Wil Tirion. Also, notes will be

posted on the Web page.

Web Page: www.physast.uga.edu/~loris follow link to ASTR 1010L & ASTR

1020L pages

Objective: The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the night sky and to telescopes for making simple astronomical observations.

Methodology: The first nine weeks of the course are basically training sessions to learn about the night sky and how to use the telescopes. The first two or three class meetings will be in room 327 in the Physics Building; afterwards, class will meet at the Intramural Fields (see map on Web page), if the weather permits. As the semester progresses, you will learn how to identify celestial objects (stars, constellations, planets) visually, and how to make simple telescopic observations of these and other celestial objects. The two TA’s (Ms. Wennerstrom and Mr. Schneider) will be at the Intramural Fields every clear or mostly clear Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Sometimes, Prof. Magnani will be there also. Obviously, if the weather is completely overcast and/or it is raining, then there will be no lab meeting that evening. In that case, you will have to attend the next clear class night. During the training phase, we do not take attendance. You do not have to show up on a clear class night on a given week, and, conversely, if you wish, you could show up twice a week (weather permitting).

The idea for the first nine weeks is to learn how to use the equipment, how to find celestial objects in the sky, and how to make simple descriptions and/or drawings of them – NO MATTER HOW MUCH OR HOW LITTLE TIME THAT MIGHT TAKE. You might be able to pick up all you need to know in only a few sessions, or you might need more than a dozen sessions (which would entail coming two nights a week for at least some of the first nine weeks). The bottom line is that by the end of first nine weeks of the course you will have learned your way around the night sky and picked up enough telescopic observational techniques for you to complete the lab assignments during the last 6 weeks of the semester.

Beginning the week of March 18th, you will begin to carry out the lab assignments described below. Your grade will be partially based on how many labs you actually finish (the grading system is explained below). If you don’t finish any labs to the TA’s satisfaction, then you will get no credit for that lab. To get credit for a lab assignment, you will make an appointment with one of the TA’s and attempt to carry out the tasks outlined on the Web pages for the given lab assignment (a list of the labs is shown below), while the TA is watching. As you will see below, most of the labs involve finding objects with the telescope so you will have to prove to the TA that you can do this by actually pointing the telescope at the object and finding the object in question. The Lunar Lab, The Phases of Venus, and the Mass of Saturn Lab involve making some observations over several nights, doing some calculations at home, and turning in a brief write-up.

Given the likelihood of bad weather in the spring in Athens, it will not be trivial to finish the maximum of 5 lab assignments during the last 6 weeks of the semester. If you wait till the last few days and those days are cloudy, then whatever assignments you’ve done up to that point will be included in your grade (see below for how the assignments are factored into your final grade). Make sure you are clear on this point: IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO SCHEDULE A TIME WITH ONE OF THE TA’s – WHEN THE WEATHER WILL BE CLEAR – SO THAT YOU CAN COMPLETE THE LAB ASSIGNMENTS IN QUESTION. If you wait till the very end to do this and time runs out and the weather does not cooperate, then that is unfortunate; but bad weather will not be accepted as a valid excuse. If you get sick, or have another documented emergency that prevents from completing the number of labs you wished to complete, then you will receive a grade of Incomplete and will have to schedule a session with the TA’s or Prof. Magnani during the subsequent two semesters to change the Incomplete to a letter grade. A grade of Incomplete that is not remedied during the following two semesters automatically becomes a grade of F after the end of the second semester.

Grading: The grading system consists of completing satisfactorily (as judged by the TA’s) a number of lab assignments. There are a total of 7 lab assignments to choose from (see below), of which you can do a maximum of 4 that will count towards your grade. Each successfully completed lab assignment will be graded on a maximum scale of 20 points. You will get approximately 14 points if you are judged to have done a satisfactory job, approximately 17 points if you did a good job, and the full 20 points if you did an excellent job. The actual number of points that you get on a given lab is at the discretion of the TA or Prof. Magnani. If you do an unsatisfactory job on the lab, as judged by the TA’s or Prof. Magnani, you can get as little as 0 points on a given lab and then you will have to try it again (see below). If you get less points on a lab than you would like, you can always try the lab again. The highest number of points you get for a given lab will be your final score for that lab. For example, I do the Double Star Hunt three times and I get scores of 12, 18, and 17 points, in that order. What will get recored ed for my Double Star Hunt Lab is an 18. For the observing labs where you point the telescope and have to find a given number of objects (i.e., the Double Star Hunt, Deep Sky Hunts – both Hard and Easy), the number of points you get for finding less than the ideal number of objects is spelled out in the individual lab writeup on the Web pages.

As stated above, the maximum number of labs you will be scored on is 4; if you do 4 labs and get a maximum of 20 on each, you will have a maximum total of 80 points. A Lab Final Exam (given the week of April 22^nd) will contribute a maximum of 20 points to your final score. The two components (Lab Assignments and Lab Final Exam) thus add up to a maximum of 100 points. Once your final score is calculated, the letter grade you receive will be based on the following scale: A is for a score of 93.00 or above, A- is for the range 90.00 – 92.99, B+ is for 87.00 – 89.99, B is for 83.00 – 86.99, B- is for 80.00 – 82.99, C+ is for 77.00 – 79.99, C is for 73.00 – 76.99, C- is for 70.00 – 72.99, D is for 60.00 – 69.99, and F is for any average below 60.00.

If you attempt a lab and it is deemed unsatisfactory by one of the TA’s (for example, you look for three globular clusters but you can’t find any), then you can re-try the lab as many times as you want until it is deemed satisfactory. However, for each re-try, you will have to make a new appointment with the TA. The labs can be done in any order (though the hard Deep Sky Hunt really is difficult and should probably be attempted last after you’ve gotten some experience using the telescopes). All the labs with the exception of the Mass of Saturn Lab and the Phases of Venus Lab can be done in one evening.

The absolute last day to complete a lab assignment will be Tuesday, May 1, 2007. No appointments with the TA’s will be scheduled after that date.

The laboratory assignments are the following:

Constellations and the Celestial Sphere

Double Star Hunt

Deep Sky Hunt – Easy

Deep Sky Hunt – Hard

Lunar Mountains Lab

Phases of Venus Lab

Mass of Saturn Lab

You can follow the links on the course main web page to read the writeups for these labs.

Note that we will be observing at the intramural fields in cold weather for a good part of the semester. Make sure you have warm clothing. A hat is probably a very good idea.