Purpose

The purpose of this course is to provide the students with hands-on activities related to the material in the lecture course. This quarter, the lecture centers on the solar system. Thus, most of the exercises will be concentrated on the nature of the night sky, the motions of the planets, the nature of telescopes, etc. Students will be required to complete 8 lab sessions during the quarter. Labs begin the week of September 27^th. The last lab is the week of November 15^th.

Class Supplies

The lab manual, can be obtained (only!) at the University of Cincinnati Bookstore on

West Campus (about $8). While there, pick up a Star and Planet Locator (also called a star wheel, about $3). You will also be required to bring a scientific calculator to each lab. The calculator should be capable of working with exponents (base 10 and natural log) and have trigonometric functions. A simple 4-function calculator (+, -, x, and / ) will be insufficient for the lab exercises. It is the responsibility of the student, not the class instructor, to know how their calculator works.

Grading

Each lab activity will be graded on a scale of 0-10. MISSED LABS CANNOT BE MADE UP. Typically, at the end of the quarter students have been allowed to make up one lab exercise, but the instructor reserves the option of simply dropping the lowest lab score (which could be a zero for a missed lab). Grading will be approximately as follows: 95+% = A, 85-94% = B, 70-84% = C, 60-69% = D. These grade cutoffs are subject to revision, as the instructor sees fit.

Laboratory Exercises this quarter (sometimes more than one is done in a single lab)

Numbers and Graphs

This exercise is designed to act as a refresher exercise for the use of numbers and graphs in science.

Optics and Telescopes

Experiments with lenses and mirrors to understand how a telescope works.

Using a Planisphere

Here the student learns how to find and identify objects in the sky using the Star and Planet Locator.

Voyager III Exercises

Voyager III is a "planetarium" software program that is installed on the computers in the Astronomy Lab Room. The 6 exercises in the Lab Manual are:

Learning the Basics of Voyager

Looking Around the Horizon

Motions Along the Ecliptic

Tracking the Sun, Moon, and Planets

Motions of the Planets

Phases of the Moon

The Moons of Jupiter

This exercise utilized a software program that will allow the student to measure the mass of the planet Jupiter.

Lunar Surface Features

Understanding the topography of the moon using photographs from the Lunar Orbiter spacecraft.