ASTR 101: Descriptive Astronomy

Course Overview

Welcome to ASTR 101, Descriptive Astronomy.

This semester we will explore the following topics:

• Charting the Heavens
• The Copernican Revolution
• Radiation and Spectroscopy
• Telescopes
• The Solar System
• The Formation of Planetary Systems
• The Sun and Stars
• Star Formation, Stellar Evolution, and Stellar Explosions
• Neutron Stars, Black Holes, Galaxies, and Dark Matter
• Cosmology and the Early Universe.

Should be fun! Astronomy is a scientific subject, and you can expect to work with scientific equations and mathematics as we explore the universe.

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Required Text

Your text for this course is Astronomy Today, 5th edition, by Chaisson and McMillan, which is available at the Higher Grounds bookstore at the Friday Center. You can order Astronomy Today from Higher Grounds online, or you can print out this book order form and order it by fax or regular mail.

Students enrolled in Carolina Courses Online can access online library resources from the UNC Library System by linking to Library Services for Distance Education Students. See Course Mechanics for more information.

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Course Components

ASTR 101 has ten lessons, two midterm exams, and a final exam. In addition, you will be expected to participate in the class discussion forums.

Lessons

Here is a description of what you will encounter in the lessons:

• Reading Assignments

All reading assignments will be from Astronomy Today. I both like and dislike this text. It does a good job of explaining why things are the way that they are, instead of treating the material superficially like most introductory astronomy texts do, but I do not like how the material is ordered, particularly near the end of the text. Consequently, in each lesson I suggest not only what to read, but what order you should read it in.

The CD that comes with the text contains a number of extras: short animations and videos, and interactive tutorials and “Physlet Illustrations.” Some of these are quite good, while others are probably more trouble than they are worth. However, I imagine that each of you will find different ones to be helpful, so I have included as many of the relevant ones as I could identify in the reading assignments. I strongly encourage you to try them. If you find one helpful, great. If not, maybe the next one will be better. In any case, these are meant only to reinforce the material in the text—they are not meant to be integral to your learning of this material.

• Terms You Should Know

Each lesson includes a list of terms you should know. Almost exclusively, these come from the reading material, and you will want to have a handle on them so that you can speak intelligently about this material in the discussion forums.

• Math Notes, Summaries, and Laws

Almost every lesson has at least one, and sometimes all three, of these:

Math Notes: These are meant to help you do the homework problems, roughly half of which involve some math. They organize and expand upon the math that you will encounter in the text, often providing examples that parallel homework problems. I very strongly encourage you to make use of these.

Summaries: The summaries are meant to flesh out topics that are covered more briefly in the text, or to provide you with a brief recap of important information. I do not expect you to memorize all of this information. Rather, you should view these as references that you can go to if you want or need more information.

Laws: These sections provide restatements of Kepler's, Newton's, and Kirchhoff's laws from the text. I have included them in your lessons for easy access and to show you how they apply to specific aspects of astronomy.

• Homework and Exercises

Each lesson concludes with a homework assignment. The first three lessons also have exercises that will count toward your participation grade.

Homework assignments will be administered through a software package called Blackboard. There is a link to Blackboard at the top of each lesson page. See Course Mechanics for access information.

Homework will be available at the Blackboard site at the beginning of the lesson, and will always be due before 10 pm on the due date (see the Lesson Schedule for due dates). Do not wait until the last minute to submit your homework! After submitting your homework, check to make sure that Blackboard received your submission before logging off. Late homework will not be accepted without a medical excuse.

I strongly encourage you to make use of the discussion forums to work on the homework assignments with your classmates.

Exams

There will be two midterm exams and a final exam. The final will be cumulative, but with an emphasis on material covered after the second midterm.

Exams will be administered via Blackboard and will be available a week before the due dates (see the Lesson Schedule for exam dates). Makeup exams will not be given without a medical excuse.

Exams are open book and open notes. However, you are not permitted to consult with anyone (except me) about your exams. Although I encourage you to work as a group on the homework and exercises, you must take the exams on your own.

Participation

Participation in the discussion forums is an important component of the course and will count for 25 percent of your final grade. I strongly encourage you use the discussion forums to discuss

• the homework
• the exercises
• the material in the text
• the material in the lessons
• any other burning astronomy questions that you might have.

I encourage you to present questions to the group and to discuss what you think the answers to others' questions might be. I will monitor the discussions and jump in from time to time to help out. But do not feel that this means that you cannot ask me questions directly—I live to answer astronomy questions!

An appropriate question for the discussion forum might be, “How can astronomers detect black holes if they don't emit any light?” An inappropriate question might be, “What's the answer to question 3?”

An appropriate response to the first question might be, “I think that one way is they detect gas flowing into them. But how do they know that it's a black hole that the gas is flowing into?” Feel free to be more verbose than in these abbreviated examples.

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Grades

Final grades will be assigned on a curve at the end of the semester. Roughly, the top 20 percent of the class will receive As, the next 30 percent will receive Bs, the next 30 percent will receive Cs, the next 15 percent will receive Ds, and the bottom 5 percent will be considered for an F. However, you have to do very poor work to get an F. Your grade will be determined as follows:

• Homework: 25 percent of your final grade. Your lowest grade on the ten homework assignments will be dropped. An extra-credit homework—a two-page essay—will be offered in Lesson 5. I will grade this optional homework on a pass/fail basis. If you pass, I will also drop your second lowest homework grade when I average your homework grades. The extra credit homework is due at the same time as the final exam.
• Exams: 50 percent of your final grade. The final will count as two midterms. Your lowest exam grade will be dropped, unless it is the final, in which case the final will count the same as a midterm.
• Participation in the discussion forums: 25 percent of your final grade.

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Contact Information

If you have any administrative questions, and/or science questions that you do not want to share with the rest of the group, feel free to email me. A link to my e-mail address appears in the navigation box at the top of each lesson page. Please include “CCO ASTR 101” in the subject line of any message you send me. 

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Course Mechanics

Blackboard

Some of your class components (discussion forums, homework, and exams) are accessed through a software package called Blackboard, and you will need to login to Blackboard using a unique identifier known as your UNC Onyen (Only Name You'll Ever Need) and Onyen password.

There is a link to the Blackboard site in the gray navigation bar at the top of every page in this course. Click on that link, and then use your Onyen to log in to Blackboard. Click on the "ASTR 101" link, and you will see navigation buttons on the left taking you to the forums, exams, and so on.

If you experience problems accessing Blackboard, this is what you should do:

• If you do not already have a UNC Onyen, go to the Onyen Web site and follow the instructions for creating an Onyen.

• If you have an Onyen but have forgotten it (or the password), visit the Onyen Web site.

• If you have your Onyen but can't log in to Blackboard, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.

• If you can log in to Blackboard but can't find this course listed, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.

• If you can't locate an exam or discussion forum in Blackboard, contact the Instructional Designer.

• If you have other technical problems while using Blackboard, contact Blackboard Help (use the Help button in Blackboard, or call 919-962-HELP).

Library Services and E-reserves

Students enrolled in Carolina Courses Online can access online library resources from the UNC Library System by linking to Library Services for Distance Education Students. This site includes information on using general online reference works as well as accessing e-reserves and e-journals. If you are off-campus, when you click on a restricted library resource (such as e-reserves), you will be prompted to enter your Onyen. If you are unable to access the library's licensed resources, please contact the proxy team for further assistance.

E-mail

E-mails regarding the course will go to your UNC Onyen e-mail address (the one that appears when you post to the discussion forum). Off-campus users can access their UNC mail using Webmail. You can have your Onyen e-mail forwarded to a different e-mail address by clicking “Forward email” at the Onyen Web site. Please also notify Janice Durham at the Friday Center of the change.

If you use a filter on your e-mail account, you are responsible for ensuring that it does not prevent you from receiving messages from me, the course listserv, or Friday Center staff.

Hotmail users should be aware that Hotmail will block messages sent from within Blackboard because Blackboard uses “blind carbon copy” to protect privacy. We recommend that you use your UNC Onyen e-mail account rather than forwarding to Hotmail for this course.

Submitting Assignments

It is extremely important for you to save copies of any work you send to your instructor via e-mail. If your instructor doesn't receive your work, you must have a duplicate copy, indicating the date sent, to prove that you submitted the assignment on time. It is your responsibility to maintain copies of your sent e-mails, as there is no way to guarantee that any e-mail message will be delivered.

Please check your e-mail software to see how it manages sent and saved messages. Some software automatically deletes messages one month after they have been sent; others only save messages if they are filed in folders; others save messages received but not those sent. You may need to send yourself a copy of your e-mailed assignment at the same time you send it to your instructor, or you may need to print a copy of the e-mail message and any attachments to keep in your paper files. No matter how your system works, make sure you know how to save a copy of all work that you submit to your instructor and that you save the copy for several months beyond the end of the course.

And finally, remember to keep your in-box cleaned out—a full in-box will not accept new messages.

Other Questions

Contact your instructor with questions regarding the content of the course and your progress. There is an e-mail link to your instructor at the top of every lesson page. Please include "CCO ASTR 101" in the subject line of your e-mail.

Contact your Instructional Designer at the Friday Center about problems with this Web site, including bad links.

If you have any logistical questions as you work through the course (enrollment, Onyen, credits, withdrawal, and so on), contact the Student Services staff at the Friday Center for Continuing Education (phone 919-962-1134 or 800-862-5669).

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Lesson Schedule

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Honor Code

Remember that as a student of UNC-Chapel Hill, you are bound by the University's Honor Code, which states that "It shall be the responsibility of every student at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to obey and support the enforcement of the Honor Code, which prohibits lying, cheating, or stealing when these actions involve academic processes or University students or academic personnel acting in an official capacity."

An especially serious Honor Code violation is plagiarism.  If you have questions, please consult your instructor.

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Lesson 1