LABORATORY EXERCISES
IN ASTRONOMY

FOR PHYSICS 101

ASTRONOMY AND THE UNIVERSE

Dr. Leslie M. Golden

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I have composed these laboratory exercises to allow introductory astronomy courses to better compete with more traditional so-called laboratory courses in fulfilling science breadth requirements at colleges and universities. When competing with laboratory courses, astronomy has been at a disadvantage. Astronomical exercises, using actual data, often involve tedious calculations. In my experience, the student learns little about astronomy and, far from discovering its beauty, becomes disenchanted with the field. If the instructor chooses to assign standard introductory physics experiments, then he not only fails to inculcate much of the beauty of astronomy, but he must also justify their relevance to a course in astronomy.

This book presents experiments which will teach physics relevant to astronomy. The astronomy instructor frequently faces this need when his college or university has no astronomy department and any astronomy course is taught in the physics department.

First, I present experiments on mathematical tools and graphing techniques, which should be the part of every college student's intellectual equipment but which are often not. Facility in these techniques is achieved by usage in the subsequent experiments. I include pure physics experiments in the Balmer line spectra and blackbody radiation, and a numerical experiment on Kepler's laws which utilizes ephemeris data. Three experiments which can be conducted over a major portion of a semester, observations of the Galilean satellites, observations of Venus, and determination of local geographic latitude from observations of lengths of sun-cast shadows, will give the student a feel for observations.

The experiments on the Galilean satellites, Kepler's laws, and the orbit of Venus will provide a short introduction to the history of astronomy. This subject is frequently bypassed in one semester courses.

The experiment on telescope optics is fairly comprehensive, and therefore somewhat lengthy. It might be performed in two laboratory sessions.

From these experiments, the student will acquire important analytical tools, learn some physics appropriate to astronomy, and experience the direct gathering of data. With a field trip to a nearby observatory or a planetarium and observation of a possible lunar or solar eclipse, a full semester worth of laboratory exercises will be available to the instructor.

Leslie M. Golden
Department of Physics
University of Illinois at Chicago




TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I. TOOLS OF THE ASTRONOMER

1. Mathematical Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. Graphing Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3. The Optics of Telescopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

PART II. THE SOLAR SYSTEM

4. Earth: The Seasons and Local Latitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5. The Orbit of Venus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
6. Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
7. The Galilean Satellites of Jupiter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

PART III. MEASURING THE STARS AND BEYOND

8. The Theory of Atomic Spectra: The Balmer Lines . . . . . 105
9. Blackbody Radiation

(c) Copyright 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 Leslie M. Golden

All Rights Reserved
All Rights of Reproduction Reserved


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To Maria da Conceica Afonso Gonsalves Mesquita, Duffy, Tweetie, Byron the Beagle, and Cicero, Skipper, and Emerson.

I would like to thank Konstantin Akimov, David Barclay, A. Louis Licht, and Uday Sukhatme for their helpful comments during the preparation of this book.

Background -- Hubble Space Telescope ultradeepfield image

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