15-PHYS-125 ASTRONOMY LAB - Winter 2006

Prof. Michael L. Sitko - Lab Supervisor

Lab Assistant Joey Carpenter (Mon 2 PM)

Lab Assistant Yara Beshara (Mon, Tues 7 PM)

Purpose

The purpose of this course is to provide the students with hands-on activities related to the material in the lecture course Astronomy: Stars and Galaxies. The lecture centers on the nature of stars, galaxies, and the universe as a whole. Thus, most of the exercises will be concentrated on the nature of the night sky, the spectra, distances, and other properties of stars, the nature and expansion of the universe, etc. Labs begin the week of January 9^th. Monday labs will NOT meet on January 16^th because of the University’s observance of Martin Luther King Day. Monday labs finish March 6^th. Tuesday labs finish February 28^th.

Description of the Lab Class

Students will be required to complete 8 lab sessions during the quarter. You must attend lab class to get credit for the course. MISSED LABS AND QUIZZES CANNOT BE MADE UP. Lab sessions typically consist of a possible short quiz on one or more constellations (based on one or more hand-outs from the previous week), and one or more in-class lab exercises that are to be completed and handed in by the end of the lab period. Time, weather, and lighting conditions permitting, a short outdoor observational exercise may also be done if the lab meets in the evening.

Class Supplies

The lab manual can be obtained (only!) at the University of Cincinnati Bookstore on West campus (costs about $8). The student will be required to bring a small number of supplies to class: a clipboard (for writing reports while observing outdoors), a metric ruler, and a scientific calculator. The calculator should be capable of working with exponents, have trig functions, etc. A simple 4-function calculator (add, subtract, multiply, and divide) will be insufficient for many of the lab exercises. It is also the responsibility of the student, not the class instructor, to know how their calculator works.

Grading

Each day’s lab activities will be graded on a scale of 0-10. In addition, a quiz will be given at the start of each lab period, and will be graded on a scale of 0-2. However, the lab assistant will drop the lowest quiz grade and the lowest lab grade. Grading will be approximately as follows: 90+% = A, 80-89% = B, 70-79% = C, 60-69% = D. These grade cutoffs are subject to revision, as the instructor sees fit.