Web+Links+for+Astronomy+120

Excellent General Astronomy Websites:
Astronomy magazine Sky & Telescope Magazine Phil Plait's "Bad Astronomy" pages about all the stuff the rest of the world tends to get wrong. NASA's Solar System Pages CalTech's Cool Cosmos, The Khan Academy has more Astronomy videos. Excellent stuff. Be sure to check it out!

Lecture #1: Introduction and WOW! The Universe is Big!
__Scales of the Universe__:
 * The scale of astronomical studies Prof. Rieke's U of Arizona website on the scale of the Universe.
 * Powers of Ten (video) A classic movie...amazing for its time, and still great!

Lecture #2: What is Science?
1. OpenStax Textbook, Section 1.2, "The Nature of Science" (this article should take you ~8 minutes to read) 2. OpenStax Textbook, Section 1.1, "The Nature of Astronomy" (~1.5 minutes)
 * Required pre-class preparation**:

__Scientist speak metric...__
 * Understanding the metric system (video) An elementary school take on the metric system.
 * Think Metric! Great site.
 * Figuring out significant figures in computational questions is, well, SIGNIFICANT!
 * Scientific notation is also notable!

__What is Science__:
 * Bruce Railsback’s take of “science” A professor of Geology at the University of Georgia, he has written a wonderful introduction to the subject.
 * Bad Astronomy Phil Plait's astronomy pages of many common misconceptions concerning astronomy related subjects.
 * Horoscopes vs telescopes A excellent article that explains the non-scientific nature of astrology.
 * Creationism vs. science A wonderful article detailing why intelligent design is not a "science."

Lecture #3: Stars, Constellations and ways to map the sky
1. OpenStax Textbook, Section 2.1, "The Sky Above" (This is a long section. Leave at least 45 minutes to understand it all.)
 * Required pre-class preparation:**

__Stars & Constellations__:
 * What is a star? Answered by those NASA types.
 * Star Names Steven Gibson from the Arecibo Observatory explains how many stars got their names, and has a table of star names.
 * Chris Dolan's Constellations webpages.

__Coordinate Systems__:
 * WikiHow has a wonderful page on basic map reading instructions.
 * For those of you that are unsure about how to read the celestial maps, Andrew Fazekas has a nice page detailing the technique.
 * A very detailed, albeit slightly dry, explanation of coordinate systems.
 * A great (student found!) website on the Altitude/Azimuth coordinate system.
 * Wikipedia's pages on the horizon (horizontal) coordinate system DON'T worry about the transformations. You'll never have to do that!
 * Swinburne University's pages on the horizon coordinate system and the equatorial coordinate system with great images.
 * Downloadable star maps. Not as detailed as needed for the RA&dec worksheet, but pretty good.
 * Here's another option for star maps, for you eager beavers!

Lectures #4 & #5: Everything's in Motion
1. OpenStax Textbook, Section 3.1, "The Laws of Planetary Motion" (27 minutes) 2. OpenStax Textbook, Section 3.2, "Newton's Great Synthesis" (20 minutes) 3. OpenStax Textbook, Section 3.3, "Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation" (18 minutes) 4. OpenStax Textbook, Section 3.4, "Orbits in the Solar System" (8 minutes) 5. OpenStax Textbook, Section 3.5, "Motions of Satellites and Spacecraft" (9 minutes)
 * Required pre-class preparation: **

__Everything is in motion (Keplerian model)__:
 * Johannes Kepler A brilliant mathematician.
 * Kepler's three laws of planetary motion a technical explanation, for teachers, from NASA.
 * Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion
 * Kepler's Second Law of Planetary Motion. The applet takes awhile to load.

__Everything is in motion (Newtonian mechanics and Newtonian Gravity)__:
 * Newton's three laws of motion (sort of juvenile, but fun nonetheless.)
 * Newton's three laws of motion (the slightly more grown up version.)
 * Newton's Third law of Motion: Astronauts in Outer Space YouTube video. Who knew?!
 * Newton's laws of motion, using LEGO (excellent YouTube, stop motion video, by a grade nine student. Truly inspiring!)
 * Wikipedia's pages about Newtonian gravity (The first part is great. Then it tends to get very detailed and above the level required for this course. However, it's a good read for those of you who like a Challenge.)
 * About.com's pages on Newton and gravity.
 * Here is a VERY cool gravity simulator by the folks at the Polish-Canadian Kourier newspaper! (No, I didn't find this, one of my students did!)

Lecture #6: Optics and Telescopes
1. OpenStax Textbook, Section 6.1, "Telescopes" (~30 minutes) 2. OpenStax Textbook, Section 6.3, "Visible-Light Detectors and Instruments" (13 minutes)
 * Required Pre-Class Preparation:**

__Telescopes and Observatories__:
 * **Simple lenses and mirrors** This is a good place to start.
 * Waves, light and sound Why go to UCLA when they post such wonderful stuff online? **This is wonderful stuff, but you can't use Chrome as a browser, as Chrome no longer supports Java. Try Firefox instead.**
 * HowStuffWorks.com: How Telescopes Work An introduction.
 * Wikipedia's telescope pages.
 * How spherical mirrors & parabolic mirrors reflect light (youTube video that was shown in class).
 * U Arizona is now making the mirrors for the world's biggest telescope. Check it out!
 * How spectrographs work: an introduction and a more advanced description.
 * Telescopes are housed in Observatories, some of which are in space.

__Atmospheric Seeing (optional)__:
 * The Seeing Observations Database is a good place to start to understand the effects of the atmosphere on astronomical observations.

__Adaptive Optics (Optional)__:
 * A simple-ish introduction.
 * A short YouTube video on how the Gemini GEMS LASER guide star system allows adaptive optics to work.
 * The wikipedia page is very detailed, and more complicated than you'll need, but it's got good stuff: Adaptive Optics.

Lecture #7: Electromagnetic Radiation
1. OpenStax Textbook, Section 5.1, "The Behaviour of Light" (30 minutes) 2. OpenStax Textbook, Section 5.2, "The Electromagnetic Spectrum" (only up to "Radiation Laws") (20 minutes) 3. OpenStax Textbook, Section 5.6, "The Doppler Effect" (17 minutes)
 * Required Pre-Class Preparation:**

__Light__:
 * Link to the Astronomy Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Hydrogen Atom Simulator.
 * About.com's pages on photons.
 * Light from the HowStuffWorks.com pages.
 * Electromagnetic radiation as told by the excellent pages at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. Follow the links around these pages to learn a lot!
 * UV light really sucks! It's damage to your skin is serious...so wear your sunscreen!

Lecture #8: Blackbody Radiation
1. OpenStax Textbook, Section 5.2, "The Electromagnetic Spectrum" ("Radiation Laws" to the end of the section) (16 minutes) 2. OpenStax Textbook, Section 5.3, "Spectroscopy in Astronomy" (21 minutes)
 * Required Pre-Class Preparation:**

__Spectra & Blackbodies__:
 * Blackbody spectrum
 * Jefferson Lab's atoms pages
 * Visible spectra of the elements Oh so cool!
 * COOLEST SPECTRA WEBPAGE EVER! Your can click on the options at the top to see the various spectra, or you can use your mouse to "click and drag" to change the middle (black and white graph) spectrum. Doing so will give you an idea of what constitutes a strong emission or absorption feature.
 * The Solar Spectrum poster (from class) with the major Fraunhofer lines.

__The Color of Stars__:
 * From Phil Plait's "Bad Astronomy" column, Why Are There No Green Stars?

__Kirchhoff's Three Laws__:
 * Wikipedia's pages on the three laws of spectroscopy that Kirchhoff deduced.
 * Penn State's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics' Kirchhoff's laws pages.
 * Types of astronomical spectra by those clever Australians.

Lecture #9: Atoms and Spectra
1. OpenStax Textbook, Section 5.4, "The Structure of the Atom" (27 minutes) 2. OpenStax Textbook, Section 5.5, "Formation of Spectral Lines" (23 minutes)
 * Required Pre-Class Preparation:**

__Production of Light (electron transitions within atoms)__:
 * A really nice series of webpages covering the basics.
 * Animation of photon production from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Astronomy pages.
 * The energy levels of a hydrogen atom, and electron transitions are explained quite well in this YouTube video.

Lecture #10: The Sun (A Typical Star)
__The Sun & Thermonuclear Fusion__:
 * The Sun today: spaceweather.com
 * Convection, as seen in the photosphere. (the link is still active, as of Sept 2015...reload if necessary)
 * "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent" A very corny, 1950s song...one that will stick in your brain.
 * Wikipedia's pages on the Sun Again, more then you'll ever need to know, but if you have a Sun question, likely the answer is here!
 * The Sun from NinePlanets.org (a bit out of date, that website, isn't it?!)
 * The Sun from AstronomyToday.com
 * The Sun from UniverseToday.com
 * Thermonuclear Fusion, the Sun's energy source, as explained by the folks at the University of Oregon.
 * Thermonuclear Fusion, thermo (hot), nuclear (not "nucular") & fusion (joining) see these atoms join!
 * Fusion in the Sun: That applet shown in class. Remember to use Safari/Firefox for this Java application.

Lectures #11 & #12: Characterizing Stars
__Determining Astronomical Distances__:
 * Stellar Parallax check out the slider at the bottom of the image that changes the distance to the observed star.
 * Stellar Parallax, as told by those of the Khan Academy.
 * The Australian Telescope Outreach and Education page on Spectroscopic Parallax

__Apparent vs. Absolute magnitude__:
 * Look here for a good site. A bit childish, but I really like flashlight/lighthouse example.
 * Magnitude system a bit dry, and mathematical, but a good read.

__Classification of Stars__:
 * Wikipedia's webpage on stellar classification is a good place to start.
 * Stellar Spectral Types. Shows some nice examples of O & B stellar spectra, and their features.
 * The Australia Telescope Outreach & Education's Introduction to the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram as seen in class.
 * Spectral Classification of Stars. A fabulous page from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's astronomy department.
 * Calculating the width of Stellar Spectral Lines is complicated.

Lectures #13: Interstellar Medium
__Interstellar Medium__:
 * Nebulae: "Cosmic clouds"
 * Emission Nebulae (search for "HII regions"), also known as HII regions
 * Reflection Nebulae (search for "Reflection nebulae")
 * HI regions (21 cm line) Non-luminous nebulae of neutral, atomic hydrogen (I've called them, "Atomic Nebulae")
 * Molecular Nebulae, also known as "dark nebulae" Where all star formation occurs
 * Interstellar Reddening leave off when they start to talk math (unless that would make your evening!)
 * Interstellar Reddening, take II
 * Wikipedia's page on Interstellar Extinction again, stop when it gets too technical

Lectures #14: Stellar Formation & Main Sequence
A lovely site (with lots of links!) from the Australian Telescope Outreach and Education: Stellar Evolution: The Life and Death of Stars.

__Stellar Formation__:
 * Jean Instability DON'T!!! go beyond the first two sentences! (Well, you can, sure...have fun with that then!)
 * Star formation A decent online lecture from James Schombert's Astro122 class (University of Oregon). Enjoy!
 * More star formationfrom UniverseToday.com, with lots of links to more, related, articles.
 * T Tauri stage the encyclopedia version
 * A lovely, albeit overly dramatic, video of star formation (note that the temperature they state is in Fahrenheit, not Kelvin).

__Main Sequence-hood (boring middle age)__:
 * Properties of Main Sequence stars
 * Jonathan Bergmann's video podcast on Main Sequence Stars.
 * Space.com's "how to tell star types apart" infographic is neat, except for that part about the Sun exploding in a nova. That's incorrect.  Even space.com gets stuff wrong sometimes!

Lectures #15 - #18: Stellar Evolution and Death of Stars of Different Masses
__Stellar Evolution__:
 * Detailed descriptions of variable stars (more then you need to know!) from NASA's Kepler website.
 * RR Lyrae stars. Wikipedia, naturally, has a page on them too.
 * Helium flash
 * OMG! The Khan Academy has Cepheid variable videos! How awesome! Check the first one out out here. And the second one here (although this second one talks about WHY the Cepheids pulsate and that explanation includes lots of "ionized" and "doubly ionized" helium talk. Have fun!)
 * Wikipedia's Cepheid variable page
 * See also J.C.Evans pages at George Mason University for a more complete summary.
 * Animation of the evolution of stellar clusters.

__Stellar Demise__ (wikispaces doesn't have those little-circle-with-the-dot-in-it for the symbol of the Sun, so I'm left to use "M sun "):
 * Ultimate fate of low mass (0.08Msun - 0.4Msun) stars (just to top two crude images).
 * Ultimate fate of medium mass (0.4M sun - 2M sun ) stars
 * Ultimate fate of high mass (2M sun - 8M sun ) stars
 * Ultimate fate of those stars (8M sun - 25M sun ) that become neutron stars
 * Ultimate fate of those massive (>25M sun ) beasties!

__Explosive Stellar Demise, other energetic events and just plane old fun or weird stuff__:
 * "Neutron stars explained," another decent YouTube video with a guy with a cool voice.
 * "The Elements" song by Tom Lehrer. A MUST LISTEN TO! Another version can be found here. For that matter, check out, "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent" Gas"
 * Type II Supernovae

Lecture #19: Evolution of Stellar Groups

 * Type Ia Supernovae (those awesome "standard candles")
 * Novae

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 * Lectures #13 - #19 prepares you for Test #2, the test on stars. **

Lectures #19 & #20: Black holes and Einstein's Relativity

 * [|"Relativity made simple"] YouTube video
 * Remember that video, made by that high school student who won $400 000?! It's here!
 * supermassive black holes

Lecture #21 Galactic Contents
__Galactic Contents__: Gravitational bound system of ...
 * Stars (see above) including those in both open clusters and globular clusters.
 * Stellar remnants (see above)
 * ISM (see above)
 * Dark matter, an introduction.
 * An really cool video on dark matter is here (there's also an excellent video on particle physics)
 * More video-explained dark matter
 * WIMPs: Weakly Interacting Massive Particles
 * MACHOs: Massive Compact Halo Objects
 * Dark matter might be WIMPy or MACHO, but it could consist of neutralinosor axions.

Lecture #22: Our Galaxy, the Milky Way
__The Milky Way__:
 * The Milky Way and stuff in it.
 * Density waves are likely the origin of the spiral arm structure we see in spiral galaxies. The video seen in class is on the right hand side of this website. Click on it for a larger version of the animation.
 * Simulating a galaxy with a density wave theory. Cool stuff (feel free to ignore the math).

Lecture #23: Galaxies
__Hubble Classification of Galaxies, using Hubble's "tuning fork" diagram__: __Galaxy Clusters and Superclusters__: __Galactic Interactions__:
 * Gigapixels of Andromeda, the awesome video version!
 * Spirals and Barred Spirals Check this link out as well.
 * Giant Ellipticals and Dwarf Ellipticals Don't be fooled by the first sentence! Read down to the fifth paragraph for the real scoop! (It's a hypothesis...not proven until those ellipticals are found. The the website sure sounds convincing, doesn't it?! But keep in mind, this is a .com website, so that means it's a commercial website, not an educational one -- .edu)
 * Irregular Galaxies
 * PBS has a lovely introduction
 * Interesting animation (seen in class) of two galaxies merging.
 * Galactic cannibalism is going on in the Milky Way. Who knew?!

Lecture #24: Life in the Universe
Content coming soon.

Lecture #25: Cosmology, the Past
__The Big Bang__:
 * The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and the Planck Mission.
 * "Cosmology!" The science of the formation, structure and evolution of the Universe.
 * Wikipedia's Age of the Universe.

Lecture #26: Cosmology, the Present and Future

 * What is dark energy? NASA can answer that (well, sort of...).
 * Dark Energy the wikipedia way.