SPRING 2008
E-Mail: loris@physast.uga.edu
Teaching Assistants: Adam Schneider, Marcus Alexander, &
Valmin Miranda
E-mail: aschneid@physast.uga.edu
Class: Tuesday 8:00 – 10:45 PM and/or Wednesday 7:55 – 9:50 PM. When we meet in class, the room will be Physics 302; when we use the telescopes outside, we will meet at the Intramural Fields (instructions below).
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 Prof. Magnani (see above)
Text: The Cambridge Star Atlas – 3rd 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. These courses are
de-coupled from the ASTR 1010 and ASTR 1020 lecture courses in the sense that
1) they don’t have to be taken the same semester as the corresponding lecture
course and 2) they don’t necessarily cover the subject matter of the lecture
course. The reason for not covering the
subject matter of the corresponding lecture course is that it is too difficult
to observe most of the non-stellar items discussed in ASTR 1020 using our small
telescopes at a non-dark sky site like the UGA Intramural Fields.
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 three class
meetings will be in room 302 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. At least one of the
three TA’s (Mr. Schneider, Mr. Alexander, and Mr. Miranda) 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) – both on Tuesday and Wednesday evening.
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 16th, you will begin to
carry out the lab assignments described below.
This is known as the “testing phase” of the course. 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 partial or even no credit
for that lab. To get credit for a lab
assignment, you will make an appointment with one of the TA’s during the
testing phase of the course 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 Mass of Saturn Lab and the Find an
Asteroid Lab involve making some observations over several nights and turning
in a brief write-up.
Given the likelihood of bad weather in the winter
and spring in Athens, it will not be trivial to finish the maximum of 4 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 three semesters
to change the Incomplete to a letter grade.
A grade of Incomplete that is not remedied during the following three
semesters automatically becomes a grade of F after the end of the third
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, let’s say I do the Double Star
Hunt three times and I get scores of 12, 18, and 17 points, in that order. What will get recorded 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 write-up 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 last two weeks of class – meet at either your Tuesday or Wednesday class time in room 302 Physics)
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 Find an Asteroid Lab can be done in one evening.
The absolute last day to
complete a lab assignment will be Tuesday, April 29th, 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
Mass
of Saturn Lab
Find
an Asteroid 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, and you should bring a small flashlight, if you have one.