Links & Applets by Topic

Light and Matter
Transverse and Longitudinal Waves
Electromagnetic Spectrum
Atmospheric Transmission
Radiating Objects
Why We Need to Look in Many Colors
A Galaxy in Many Colors animation from http://zebu.uoregon.edu
Dispersion in a Prism animation
Rainbow Formation
Kirchhoff's Laws
The Planck Law
Blackbody applet
The Blackbody Game
Graphical Depiction of Kirchhoff's Laws
The Bohr Atom
Hydrogen Balmer Spectrum
The Doppler Effect
Learning About Light Energy: The Electromagnetic Spectrum

Colors and Spectra of Stars
Stars Have Different Colors
Why Stars Have Different Colors
Solar Spectral Lines
The Solar Spectrum

Telescopes and Observatories
Angular Size Demo
Reflecting vs. refracting telescopes
Reflecting telescope types
The Gemini Observatory
The Keck Observatory
The James Webb Space Telescope
The VLA
HST
The Chandra X-Ray Observatory
Difference Between Optical and X-ray Light
Chandra's Mirror
HST fix
Seeing on the Moon
FAQ from the Hubbles Space Telescope's Space Telescope Science Institute

Observing the Sky

Lots of good images and explanations -- scroll down the whole page for lots of goodies!
An excellent guide to the celestial sphere; lots of images/animations from class are here
A terrific animation of the rotating sky
A complete lunation
Phases explained

Gravity and Orbits
Newton's Mountain
Kepler's Law & Orbit Animations
Schematic of what retrograde motion looks like. Double-click the image to start.
What it really looks like over a period of a few weeks, shown here when Jupiter and Saturn happened to be located in the same part of the sky.
Retrograde Motion - Copernicus' explanation

Milky Way Galaxy
Beautiful view of the Milky Way
Shapley's globular cluster distribution
The Milky Way as a galaxy
Milky Way lecture from Adam Frank at U. Rochester
Spiral density waves and other interesting info- scroll down for movie
Animation of stellar motions around black hole at the center of the Galaxy

Interstellar Medium
Nick Strobel's chapter on the Milky Way and Interstellar Medium
Scattering animations
How Radio Radiation is Produced
A spectroscopy refresher
Hydrogen atom simulator
Planetary Nebulae
Interstellar Medium summary

The Galactic Center
Galactic Center radio image
Galactic Center infrared image
Galactic Center x-ray images
Galactic Center in gamma rays
Galactic Center black hole orbit animation

Spiral Structure & Star Formation
Milky Way Galaxy tutorial
Spiral arm schematic
Doppler effect applet
Schematic of galaxy rotation
neutral H map of the Milky Way
Doppler shift in galactic rotation
Doppler image of galaxy rotation
Animation of Doppler-shifted light from a rotating galaxy
George Rieke's (U. Arizona) spiral arm page including animations
Schematic of star formation in a spiral density wave
Optical/IR view of a star-forming region

Galactic Rotation and Dark Matter
Animation of Doppler-shifted light from a rotating galaxy
More on dark matter

Cepheids and Standard Candles
Standard Candles
H. Leavitt
Schematic Cepheid Light Curve
Schematic Cepheid light curves at different P
The P-L relation
Demonstration of the Cepheid P-L relation
Details of Cepheid behavior
Movie of a Cepheid in M100
Hunting for Cepheid Variables in M100

The Hubble Law and the Expansion of the Universe
Doppler-shifted spectra
Hubble Law animation
Animation of galaxy distances and velocities
Hubble's Law "raisin bread" animation
Brooklyn is not expanding
Michael Richmond's web page on the age of the universe

Galaxy Types and Classification
Animated guide to galaxies
More about galaxy types
"The Great Milky Way-Andromeda Collision" simulation by John Dubinsky

The Local Group
Jerry Pool's website of maps
List of Local Group members
Local group schematic

Clusters of Galaxies and Gravitational Lensing
Jerry Pool's website of maps
Clusters of Galaxies
Gravitational lensing in a cluster of galaxies
Animation and explanation with diagrams -- scroll down about a third of the way for the figures

Distant Galaxies and the Lyman-Alpha Forest
Ned Wright's discussion of the Lyman-Alpha Forest
Article on the most distant galaxies

Galaxy Evolution
"baby" galaxy movie

Superclusters and Large-Scale Structure
Atlas of the Universe
Superclusters
Large-scale structure in the Local Universe
Movie of large-scale local structure, in redshift slices
SDSS structure movie
great page on the Great Wall, dark matter and structure formation

Relativity & Black Holes
Cool special relativity demos
PBS Nova page on relativity with links and animations
Twin paradox game
Muon Decay demonstrates time dilation and length contraction
Mercury precession animation: Newton vs. Einstein
Space warping
Supermassive black holes
Black hole FAQ
NASA's black hole page
Space Telescope Science Institute module on black holes
Gamma-Ray Bursts

Quasars and AGNs
Beginner's guide to AGNs
Quasar Tour
Optical spectra of various AGNs
Accretion disk animation
Unified Model of AGN
2dF quasar survey fields
Explanation of redshift effect in spectra
10,000 stacked quasar spectra
M87's jet has been flaring

The Expanding Universe
Depiction of Olbers' Paradox
Solution to Olbers' Paradox
Expansion of the universe animation
For discussion of why you're not expanding, see: here, or here, or here
Great pages on the Big Bang
Homogeneity and isotropy
Geometry of the universe

The Cosmic Background Radiation
George Rieke's page on the CBR
Good page on the CBR
Dipole anisotropy
Last scattering surface
CBR spectrum measured by COBE
Interpreting all-sky maps

The Big Bang, Forces, Particles and Nucleosynthesis
Eras in the The Early Universe and Nucleosynthesis
Early Universe review
Particle Adventure
The Four Forces
Unification of Forces schematic
Elementary particle diagram
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
see links under "Light & Matter" above to remind yourselves about blackbody (Planck) radiation

Inflation, Dark Energy, Dark Matter
Pie chart of the universe
SDSS: 3D map of universe bolsters case for dark energy and dark matter
Horizon problem
Inflation solves Horizon problem
Inflation solves Flatness problem
Future of the Universe depends on the source of dark energy
No big rip coming: dark energy seems to be the cosmological constant
Latest observations support dark energy as the cosmological constant

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