last updated 2/9/12

ASTRONOMY 330 LINKS PAGE

HISTORY

Excellent history of astronomy up to the time of Galileo

New interactive history of cosmology website from the American Institute of Physics

The Story Behind the Science -- bringing science and scientists to life!

Click below for some wonderful biographies; here is the main index of the website.

Ptolemy Hipparchus Copernicus Kepler Brahe* Galileo Newton Halley

*Click on the link "Tycho Brahe's Nose" for a more "colorful" Tycho Brahe page, including his nose, his pet moose and his death.

The Shapley-Curtis Debate (for later in the semester)

GOOD GENERAL WEBSITES WITH RELEVANT MATERIAL

George Rieke's online class notes - excellent!

General astronomy animations and figures

Online notes from astronomy class at U. Oregon

EXPLAINING THE SKY: COPERNICUS VS. ARISTOTLE & PTOLEMY

Heliacal Rising of Sirius

Schematic of what retrograde motion looks like. Double-click the image to start.

What it really looks like, shown here when Jupiter and Saturn happened to be located in the same part of the sky.

Retrograde Motion - Ptolemy's explanation

Retrograde Motion - Copernicus' explanation

SCALE

Refresher on Scientific Notation

Powers of Ten applet

Here's an actual SCALE MODEL of the solar system that was constructed along Route 1 in Maine. The scale is 1 mile=1 AU. (1 AU = the distance from the Earth to the Sun = 93 million miles = 150 million km.) At this scale, the nearest star would be beyond the real orbit of the moon!

MATH REVIEW; ANGLES & PARALLAX

Math Review #1

Discussion of Angles

Explanation of distances in astronomy, and parallax

A Parallax applet

GRAVITY

Galileo was right!

Newton's Mountain

An Interactive applet for Kepler's Laws, Retrograde Motion, Inner Planet Phases, and more...

LIGHT, ATOMS & SPECTRA

Transverse and Longitudinal Waves

Rieke page on light