Why is the summer hot and the winter cold
Phases of the Moon
Eclipses: when can we see them, why don't we always see them
Angles in a circle and the small angle formula
Scientific notation
Parsec, zenith, horizon, solstice, ecliptic, equinox, tropics,
circles, equator
Week 2: Motion of the Planets and History of Cosmology
Ptolemy, Copernicus, Brahe, Galileo, Kepler
What they did, saw, thought
Evidence for Sun centered Solar System (Moons of Jupiter, phases of Venus)
Newton's Laws
Kepler's Laws
epicycle, deferent, retrograde motion, conjunction, opposition
Week 3: The Solar System
The planets - remember the order MVEMJSUNP
Differences between terrestrial and Jovian
Oddness of Pluto
Atmosphere of Venus, Mars, Earth - the greenhouse effect
Asteroids - where they live, properties, composition
Comets - where they live, properties, composition
Week 4: Light, Matter and Telescopes
Duality of light - wave and particle
Speed of light, wavelength, frequency, Wien's Law, Stefan-Boltzmann Law
Electromagnetic spectrum
Blackbody spectrum - bluer/redder
Continuous, Emission line and Absorption line spectrum
Relation between flux, luminosity and brightness
The Doppler Effect
Refractive and Reflective telescopes
Focal length, objective lens, eye piece lens, magnification
Problems/Advantages of certain telescopes
Where we build observatories
Week 5: The Sun
Core, radiation zone, convection zone, photosphere, chromosphere,
corona
spectra seen from different solar regions
granulation, flares, sunspots, solar wind, Aurora
sunspot cycle and relation with magnetism
proton-proton chain supplies the energy (not gravitational collapse or
normal burning)
Week 6: Measuring the Stars
Parallax - distance to nearby stars
Luminosity, flux, brightness, magnitude, temperature, radius, composition (how we get these things)
Spectroscopy and photometry
Hertzsprung Russell diagram
Luminosity Class, spectroscopic parallax
Binary stars to get mass-luminosity relation
Extra solar planets
Week 7: Stellar Evolution
Different evolution paths of very low mass, low mass and high mass
stars
Hertzsprung Russell diagram (again)
H-He burning definition of a star (pp chain)
What elements burn in each stage of stellar evolution
Red Giant, Super Giant, White Dwarf, Planetary Nebula, Super Nova Type II
End points of stellar evolution
Week 8: Black Holes and Neutron Stars
Neutron stars detected as Pulsars (Jocelyn Bell)
Sketch of a pulsar
Young NS often have supernova remnant around them
Old NS rotate slowly but spin-up can occur
Angular momentum
Accretion of matter from nearby stars
Nova - matter onto a WD, bursters - matter onto a NS
Einstein - special and general relativity
Speed of light same for all observers
Massive objects curve space-time
Test during a solar eclipse and precession of mercury
Black holes - light cannot escape
Sketch with Schwarzschild radius, event horizon, singularity
AGN - galaxies containing a BH.
Unified Model sketch - torus, accretion disk, central black hole
Week 9: Galaxies
The Milky Way
Bulge, halo, disk, spiral arms
Problems with dust - Shapley, globular clusters, RR Lyrae's
Standard candles, P-L relation, distance ladder
Elliptical/Spiral/Bared/Irregular/Lenticular/Dwarf galaxies
Galaxies are clustered in groups and clusters
Dark matter in galaxies and clusters
Hubble's Law
Week 10: Cosmology
The Big Bang
Hubble's Law, Cosmic Microwave Background, Neucleosynthesis
Flatness problem, horizon problem, structure problem
Inflation
Open, closed, flat, accelerating Universe
Components of the Universe - dark matter/dark
energy/baryons/neutrinos
recombination, first objects formed, epoch of star formation
Equations
alpha = 206265 D/d - small angle formula
v = d/t - speed
F = ma = GmM/r^2 - Newtons 2nd law and law of Gravitation
P^2 = a^3/M - Keplers third law
lambda = 0.0029/T - Wien's Law
F = sigma T^4 - Stefan-Boltzman Law
v = c (lambda - lambda0)/lambda0 - Doppler Effect
p = 1/d - parallax
L = 4 pi R^2 sigma T^4 - HR diagram
b = L/(4 pi d^2) - brightness
L = 2/5 mwr^2 - angular momentum
T = const/Ho - Age of Universe
v = Hod - Hubble's Law