February 5
Click here
for a neat and authoritative website on the "Great Debate." This is
the website I mentioned in class.
February 7
A general hint - use your Astronomy 111 text as a resource for
unfamiliar terms, or for some more basic background. Especially since
we are going to spend 2 lectures on star formation and evolution, it
would be wise to review these topics in your old notes and text.
February 11
Halton Arp, a longtime astronomer at Caltech, lately of the Max Planck
Institute for Astrophysics in Munich, created an atlas of "peculiar"
galaxies. Here
is a home-made atlas of some Arp irregular galaxies taken with our
24-inch. There is also a link to a web page dedicated to Arp galaxies.
February 18
It's a good idea to
print out the errata sheet from the text (see text info on the
syllabus page) and go through them, correcting them in your
copy. Otherwise it's easy to forget, and then as you read or try to do
a problem at the end of the chapter, you'll get stuck.
February 22
A copy of the book
"The Color Atlas of Galaxies," by James Wray, has just been
received. It's got fantastic images of more than 600 galaxies of
virtually all types, and I recommend that you take a look at it. I've
put it on the reserve shelf for our class.
March 1
Here is the list of potential final paper
topics.
April 6
Welcome back! Impossible though it sounds, there are only 6 more
weeks of classes. I remind you that the last 3 class sessions (May 7,
11 and 14) will consist of your oral presentations of your final
papers. All final written papers are due in class on the 14th. Here is
the order of oral presentations; you may trade your slot with another
student if both of you agree.
May 7: Jeremy, Misa, Brad, Ken
May 11: Kevin, Duane, Matt, Joel
May 14: Laura, Ian, Chris
April 13
Caryl Gronwall
(Wesleyan) will be our guest lecturer.
April 15, 5-6:30 pm
Rescheduled class, Hot Tomatoes pizza included.
April 20
I'll be away, and Prof. Pasachoff will be our guest lecturer.
April 23
Tom Balonek (Colgate) will be our guest lecturer.
April 30
Kim McLeod, our guest
lecturer, will also be giving a departmental colloquium right after
our class, which you are expected to attend, unless you have another
class to go to.