The exam covers Text book (Hartmann & Impey): Pages 1 - 63
For 35 Multiple Choice and 5 True/False Questions
NEW!
I have striked out review items that are definitely NOT on the test.
1) What is the Big Bang? How long ago did it happen? When/how was Helium created? Carbon?
2) What is the Milky Way? How big (light years) is it? How big (light years) is our Solar System?
3) Why did early people learn astronomy? When were the first calenders? Which cultures?
4) What was an Obelisk? Shadow Clocks? What was the purpose of Stonehenge? How old is it?
5) The Celestial Sphere: Know Zenith, Meridian, North & South Celestial Pole, Celestial Equator
6) Know the Ecliptic (what all travels on it?), What defines your Zodiac? What is an Asterism?
7) Know the cause of our Seasons, and the Solstices and Equinox. When is daytime=nighttime?
8) Know alignment for Solar and Lunar Eclipses, what is the Umbra? the Penumbra?
9) When is an eclipse full? partial? What is an Annular Eclipse? When do they occur?
10) Know photosphere, chromosphere, corona. How long is an eclipse year?
11) Why don't eclipses happen every month? What are nodes? What is intersecting there?
12) Is it dangerous to observe Solar Eclipses with a naked eye? Lunar Eclipses? Why?
13) Why does the Moon turn Red during Lunar Eclipses? What is a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse?
14) Who can see a Solar Eclipse? Who can see a Lunar Eclipse? Why? Which occur more often?
15) Mesopotamia lies in what modern country? What did the Babylonians know about right triangles?
16) What is the difference between linear distance and angular distance? e.g. the Sun and Moon
17) How many arcseconds in a degree? What is the angle of your thumb at arms length? the Moon?
18) What important intellectual step did the Greek Scientists make with regards to astronomy?
19) Beyond mathematics and the right triangle theorem, what astronomy did Pythagoras teach?
20) Why was Aristotle's astronomical theories so detrimental to the progress of western astronomy?
21) Know Parallax. How was it used to promote a geocentric universe? What is heliocentric?
22) Know the Ptolemaic model for Planetary Motions. What are Epicycles? Why did it work well?
23) What is retrograde motion? How was it explained by Ptolemy? How do we explain it today?
24) After the Greco-Roman cultures, track how their knowledge came to Europe 1400 yrs later.
25) Know the main math/astronomy contributions of the Hindu and Islamic scholars and years.
26) Why did Copernicus's heliocentric model 'fail'? What is the significance of 'The Revolution'?
27) What was Tycho's contribution? What universe did he support? What did he discover?
28) What observations did Kepler use to develop his three Laws? Where'd this data come from?
29) Know Kepler's three laws. Did Kepler understand Why these laws existed? Who would later?
30) Know at least FIVE of Galileo's major observational discoveries in Astronomy and WHY.
31) How did Galileo's observations of the Venus PROVE the Copernican over the Ptolemaic model?
32) Know the history of Newton's discoveries on Mechanics and Gravitation and his three Laws.