Course Syllabus
29:50 Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe
Summer Semester 2004

Steven R. Spangler
705 Van Allen Hall
335-1948
steven-spangler@uiowa.edu
http://phobos.physics.uiowa.edu/$\sim$srs/

Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe is an introductory survey of the science of astronomy, intended for students who are not majoring in the natural sciences. This is an exciting time to study astronomy. Major discoveries have been made in recent times which affect our view of the universe. Many of these discoveries result from the large number of spacecraft which continue to return pictures and data from space. These data are shared with people everywhere via the Internet, and are a tremendous teaching resource. Lectures will be regularly supplemented with these findings. I also plan to emphasize those phenomena which can be seen with the unaided eye in the night sky.

General Course Information

1. Lectures are from 11:00 to 11:50 AM, in Room 70 of Van Allen Hall.
2. There is a laboratory associated with this course. Students registered for the laboratory receive 4 semester hours of credit and satisfy the General Education requirement of a natural science laboratory. Students registered for 3 semester hours do not attend the laboratory. Students registered for 4 semester hours must attend the laboratory section. The lab section meets twice a week, for two hours per session (8 - 10 PM) in room 665 of Van Allen Hall. Laboratory classes begin on Tuesday, June 8. Projects in the laboratory consist of making astronomical observations with the naked eye and with telescopes of the University. Students also use the graphics capabilities of personal computers to carry out various exercises. Please Note: Those students registered for 4 semester hours must receive a passing grade in the laboratory portion of the course as well as the lecture portion in order to receive a passing grade for the course.
3. The required textbook for the course is Astronomy Volume II: Stars and Galaxies by John D. Fix. Students registered for the laboratory will also need the lab manual Imaging the Universe by Robert Mutel.
4. Office hours for Professor Spangler are 1:30 - 2:30, Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. The teaching assistant for this course, Ms. Sarah Iverson, will also have tutorial hours which will be posted later.
5. One hour exams will be held in the regular class period on June 24, July 14, and July 30.
6. The grade in the course will be determined as follows.
   For students registered for three semester hours (without lab), each of the three examinations will count for 33.3 percent of the course grade. For students registered for four semester hours (with lab), the sum total of the exam scores will count for 75 percent of the course grade, and the laboratory grade will count for the remaining 25 percent. It is to be emphasized that a student registered for 4 semester hours will not receive a passing grade for the course as a whole unless he or she receives a passing grade for the laboratory portion. Final letter grades will be assigned on a scale determined by the percentage of possible points received. The following formula will be used: A: 85 percent or greater; B: 75 percent or better; C: 60 or better; D: 50 percent or better; F: less than 50 percent of possible points.
7. Students are encouraged to visit the observatory on the roof of Van Allen Hall to see the objects discussed in this class. A laboratory instructor will be on duty on Tuesday and Thursday night, if clear, at 10:00 PM. The roof of Van Allen Hall may be reached from a stairway at the east end of the 7th floor. The roof is kept dark during observing sessions, so be careful where you step and be alert for changes in elevation. In addition, I will personally lead many of the evening observing sessions and will also organize several ``field trips'' to an observatory at a dark sky site outside of Iowa City.
8. There is a World Wide Web homepage associated with the course,
   http://phobos.physics.uiowa.edu/$\sim$srs/. Go to the link for 29:50, Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe. The website contains lecture notes, homework assignments, and sample exams. It also serves as a gateway to other astronomical links such as the Mars Exploration Rover and Hubble Space Telescope homepages.
9. I would like to hear from anyone who has a disability which may require some modification of seating, testing, or other class requirements so that appropriate arrangements may be made. Please see me after class or during office hours.

Schedule of Topics

Date	Topic	Reading
June 8	Initial pleasantries; what's in the night sky?	-
June 9	Overview of the solar system	Chap.2
June 10	Mars and Saturn I	-
June 11	Mars and Saturn II	-
June 14,15	Appearance of the night sky	1,2
June 16	Telescopes	6
June 17	The Sun as we see it	17
June 18	The nearest stars and how we know their distances.	16
June 21	Bright stars and faint stars: the magnitude system	16
June 22-25	Starlight	6
June 24	First Hour Exam	-
June 28	The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram	16
June 29	What makes stars shine? Gravity & nuclear fusion	17
June 30	Double stars and what they tell us	21
July 01	Stellar masses	16
July 2-6	Where do stars come from?	18
July 7	Dark Clouds: chemistry sets in the sky	18
July 8	The future of the Sun	19
July 9	White dwarfs and more stellar evolution	19
July 12	neutron stars and pulsars	20
July 13	Black Holes: what they are	20
July 14	Second Hour Exam	-
July 15	The structure of the Milky Way	22
July 16	The center of the Milky Way galaxy	22
July 19	Our galaxy and other galaxies	23
July 20	What's the Milky Way made of?	23
July 21	Galaxies and the universe	23
July 22	Deep extragalactic space	23
July 23	Radio galaxies and quasars	24
July 26	Cosmology I: expansion of the universe	25,26
July 27	Cosmology II: the age of the universe	25,26
July 28	Cosmology III: dark matter and dark energy	25,26
July 29	Cosmology IV	25,26
July 30	Third Hour Exam	-