Week

Monday's Date

Topic

1

Jan. 7

First class on Jan 7: 

- Introduction to the course. 

- Overview of Public Outreach images and components of the course.

- Overview of Astronomical Objects which will be explored in detail later in the course.

Overview 

- What are outreach images and who makes them. 

- Impact of Art vs. Impact of Science on Imagemaking. 

- Scientific Method - data is collected not to make pretty pictures.

2

Jan. 14

Distances to Astronomical Objects and their Sizes. 

- includes Powers of Ten, angular measurements. light-years, and parallax.

- Inverse Square Brightness Law.

Start using iClickers Jan. 14.

Seeing Light. 

- Light and other Electromagnetic Radiation. 

- Process producing radiation: e.g. temperature and black body radiation 

(Jan. 18: the last day to change courses.)

3

Jan. 21

- Spectral Lines (Kirchhoff's Laws)

Telescopes and Detectors 

- CCD, light gathering power. 

Imaging and Brightness 

- Resolution

- Surface Brightness

- Constructing Optical Images (filters and colour assignments)

Imaging Workshop: black & white stretches for CCD images. 

4

Jan. 28

FIRST TEST OF THE TERM: Feb 1. 

- Radio Emission (spectral line and continuum) 

Seeing Gravity

- Doppler Shift and velocity fields

5

Feb. 4.

- Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravity; angular momentum 

- Tides: examples including interacting and merging galaxies

- Einstein's General Theory of Relativity

- Gravitational lensing 

Art Techniques in Imagemaking 

6

Feb. 11

Hands-on Image-making Workshop

Feb. 18

7

Feb. 25

Visualization: Computer Simulations

Cosmic Sites/Sights What images show us about the following phenomena.

Our Solar System 

- formation of planetary systems 

- overview of solar system 

8

Mar. 4

SECOND TEST OF THE TERM: Mar 8

Our Solar System continued 

Exoplanets

9

Mar. 11

 Our Sun.
Other Stars.  

10

Mar. 18

Stars: HR diagram, Red Giants, White Dwarfs

Stars - their birth and death. 

(Mar. 20: Voluntary Withdrawal Date)

11

Mar. 25

Star birth and death: Supernovae, pulsars.

Black holes. Galaxies.These will be discussed before evolution of massive stars. 

Good Friday Mar. 29.  No Class.

12

Apr. 1

Galaxies

Cosmology and Things We Can't See 

Large Scale Structure, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy. 

13

Apr. 8

Cosmology continued.

Life on Other Worlds if time permits.

Last day of Classes Apr. 10th.