Lectures:

Lecture 1 (January 10)

      Preview, course organization. Distance and mass scales in astronomy. Using light to measure distance and look back in time.   Lecture 1  

Lecture 2 (January 12)

      Chapter 1, Motion of the Earth and Sun, the Celestial Sphere, Seasons, Phases of the Moon, Eclipses   Lecture 2  
and the Lecture 2 animations

Lecture 3 (January 17)

      Chapter 2, The Angular-Diameter distance relationship, Measuring the Size of our Solar System, Kelper's Three Laws   Lecture 3  
and the Lecture 3 animations

Lecture 4 (January 19)

      Chapter 3, Gravity and orbits   Lecture 4  
and the Lecture 4 animations

Lecture 5 (January 24)

      Chapter 3, Mass and Weight, Free Fall, Surface gravity, Escape velocity   Lecture 5  
and the Lecture 5 animations

Lecture 6 (January 26)

      Chapter 4, Sections 1-4. Light and energy.   Lecture 6  

Lecture 7 (January 31)

      Chapter 4, Sections 4,5,6. Kirchoff's Laws, Doppler Shift   Lecture 7  

Lecture 8 (February 2)

      Chapter 12, The Sun as a Star   Lecture 8  

Lecture 9 (February 7)

      Special Relativity (the first part of Essay 2 in the textbook)   Lecture 9  

Lecture 10 (February 9)

      Midterm review, plus a little more on finding planets around other stars   Lecture 10  

Lecture 11 (February 16)

      Measuring the Stars: Luminosity and Brightness, Parallax distances measurements, learning about stars from their spectra   Lecture 11  

Lecture 12 (February 21)

     The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, the main sequence as a sequence of stellar mass. Stellar lifetime and nuclear energy generation rate on the main sequence   Lecture 12  

Lecture 13 (February 23)

     The ends of the lives of sun-like and massive stars. Supernovae and nuclear energy generation.   Lecture 13  

Lecture 14 (February 28)

     The Milky Way Galaxy   Lecture 14  

Lecture 15 (March 2)

     White Dwarf Supernovae, Black Holes, General Relativity   Lecture 15  

Lecture 16 (March 7)

     Galaxy rotation curves and dark matter, galaxy formation and evolution  Lecture 16  

Lecture 17 (March 9)

     The Hubble Law and the Expanding Universe   Lecture 17  

Lecture 18 (March 14)

     Cosmology: early universe nucleosynthesis and the cosmic microwave background as evidence for the Big Bang. Expansion history and fate of the universe. The geometry of the universe is flat.   Lecture 18  

Final exam review slides