Instructor: Ingrid Stairs
Meetings: MWF 12:00 - 12:50 pm in Hennings 202.
Office hours: Tuesday 2-3 pm, Hennings 332
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Teaching Assistants:
Robert Ferdman
Office Hours: Wednesday 1:30-2:30 pm, Hennings 310B
Wan Yan Wong
Office Hours: Thursday 3-4 pm, Hennings 310B
Extra tutorials for those who have not taken ASTR 201:
Friday, Jan. 6, 2-4 pm in Hennings 318
Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2-4 pm in Hennings 318
Required text:
An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics
Bradley W. Carroll and Dale A. Ostlie
1996, Addison-Wesley
ISBN: 0201547309
Students should familiarize themselves with the following chapters within
a week or so of the start of classes:
Chapters 1, 3, 5, 6 and 8.
We will review some of Chapter 1 in class, and
Chapter 2 should be review material for everyone in the course. Those
wanting to learn more about stars can look at Chapters 7, 9 and 10, but those
are not as important as background for ASTR 202.
Additional textbooks that may be interesting to those continuing in Astronomy:
Galaxies in the Universe -- This will be the required text for ASTR 303 next fall, but it also contains lots of information about our own galaxy.
Linda Sparke and John Gallagher
2000, Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521592410
Galactic Astronomy
James Binney and Michael Merrifield
1998, Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691025657
Both the Carroll & Ostlie and Sparke & Gallagher books will be available
on reserve in the library.
PDF files of the lecture notes and assignment solutions. Note that this is a password-protected area.
Approximate Course Outline:
Introduction: history of our understanding of the Milky Way, coordinate systems
Stellar populations: star counts, dust, extinction and reddening, stellar populations and evolution, star formation and initial mass function, globular and open clusters
Interstellar medium: multi-wavelength observations, differential rotation, distribution of gas
The Milky Way: kinematics of stars, bulge, disk, halo, Galactic centre, formation and evolution, Local Group of galaxies
Marking Scheme:
30% assignments (roughly every 2 weeks)
20% midterm
50% final (or 70% final if final better than midterm)
Assignment policies:
Many assignments will involve manipulation of data: plotting points,
fitting simple functions, etc. These problems will be doable by hand,
but students are encouraged to use computer programs (standard
or personal software) to solve them.
Assignments will be due at the start of
class on the due date. Late assignments will be penalized 20% for
every day late (rounding up). Students may consult each other
when working on the assignments, but each student must write up the problems
in his/her own words.
Exams:
The midterm and final exams will contain a mixture of descriptive
and quantitative questions.
Valid documentation (e.g. a doctor's note) must accompany any request
to make up a missed exam.