Course Syllabus
29:50 Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe
Fall Semester 2007

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. My main goal in this class is to teach students about the structure and content of the universe as understood in the current science of astronomy. Some of the topics to be discussed have been understood for a long time, such as the distribution in space of the nearest stars. Others constitute current astronomical research, such as the evidence for and meaning of the ``Dark Energy'' that fills and dominates the universe. In all topics, I will emphasize the way in which scientists reach conclusions through use of the scientific method. Finally, I take special pleasure in helping students make the fascinating connection between what is discussed in class, and what may be seen in the night sky with the unaided eye or small telescopes.

General Course Information

1. Lectures are from 12:30 to 1:20 PM Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, in Lecture Room 1 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 for two hours per week in room 665 or 666 of Van Allen Hall. Laboratory classes do not meet the first week, but commence the week of September 3. Projects in the laboratory consist of astronomical observations with simple instruments and small telescopes, use of star charts, laboratory demonstration of important physical principles, and individual projects with the Rigel automated telescope of the University. An important feature of the laboratory will be field trips to an observatory outside of Iowa City for astronomical observations in a dark sky setting. Descriptions of the laboratory projects will be available on the course web page (see item #9 below). The grade in the laboratory portion will be determined by a student's scores on laboratory worksheets and reports, quizzes, and a final project report. 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: Journey to the Cosmic Frontier, Volume 2: Stars and Galaxies by John D. Fix. The publisher is McGraw Hill.
4. Office hours for Professor Spangler are 2:30 - 3:30 Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon, or by appointment if this time is inconvenient.
5. One hour exams will be held in the regular class period on September 24, October 17, and November 14.
6. The final exam will be held on Thursday, December 20 at 12:00 PM in Lecture Room 1. University policy requires that students be permitted to make up examinations missed because of illness, mandatory religious obligations, certain University activities, or unavoidable circumstances. However, it is the student's responsibility to contact the instructor as soon as the student is aware that the exam will be missed. Please note that University policy also requires excused absences to be documented. Excused absence forms are available from the Registrar's web site, http://www.registrar.uiowa.edu/forms/absence.pdf.
7. The grade in the course will be determined as follows.
   For students registered for three semester hours (without lab), each of the three hour examinations will count for 20 percent of the course grade, and the final exam will count for 40 % 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 the basis of a student's standing relative to his or her peers. The following formula will be used: A: 85th percentile or greater; B: 60th percentile or better; C: 20th percentile or better; D or F: 19th percentile and lower. To receive a passing grade, a student must earn 50 percent of the possible points on exams and lab reports.
8. 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 clear nights, Monday through Thursday, at 9:00 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.
9. There is a World Wide Web homepage associated with the course,
   http://phobos.physics.uiowa.edu/$\sim$srs/. Go to the link to 29:50, Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe for this semester. The website contains lecture notes, sample exams, and descriptions of laboratory exercises. It also serves as a gateway to other astronomical links such as the homepages for the Hubble Space Telescope and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.
10. 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.
11. Classroom Environment Students have the right to a classroom environment that encourages learning. The ability to learn is lessened when students engage in inappropriate behavior, distracting others. Such inappropriate behavior is a violation of the Code of Student Life. Activities which are unacceptable are (1) prolonged, audible conversation with a fellow student (not a brief comment to someone, which is OK), and (2) talking on cell phones. Please turn off cell phones when in class.
12. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has extensive, on-line material on plagiarism and academic fraud (don't do it), mechanisms for student complaints about the class or the instructor, and other matters. See the following URL: http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/students/academic-handbook/ix.shtml (use underscore rather than hyphen between ``academic'' and ``handbook'').

Schedule of Topics

Date	Topic	Reading
Aug. 27	Introduction; the sky tonight	-
Aug. 29,31	Getting oriented: astronomical coordinate systems	Chap.2
Sept. 5,7	The solar system in a stellar and galactic context	4
Sept. 10	Distances to stars, parsecs and lightyears	16
Sept. 12	Telescopes	6
Sept. 14	Bright stars and faint stars: the magnitude system	16
Sept. 17,19	Starlight	6
Sept. 21	The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram	16
Sept. 24	First Hour Exam	-
Sept. 26,28	The Sun: a star close up	17
Oct. 1	Double stars	21
Oct. 3,5	Why do stars shine? gravity & nuclear fusion	17
Oct. 8,10	Where do stars come from?	18
Oct. 12	Dark Clouds: chemistry sets in the sky	18
Oct. 15, 19	Stellar evolution: the future of the Sun	19
Oct. 17	Second Hour Exam	-
Oct. 22,24	Dead Stars	20
Oct. 26	Black Holes: what they are	20
Oct. 29	Black Holes: are they out there?	20
Oct. 31	Stars as homes for life	27
Nov. 2,5	The Milky Way from inside and outside	22
Nov. 7,9,12	A universe of galaxies	23
Nov. 14	Third Hour Exam	-
Nov. 16	The Expanding Universe	23
Nov. 19-23	Thanksgiving: no class	-
Nov. 26-28	Deep extragalactic space: quasars and blazars	24
Nov. 30	Dark Matter	25
Dec. 3-12	Cosmology: ``Dark Energy''and the fate of the universe	25
Dec. 14	Summary and overview	-
December 20 (Thursday)	12:00 PM: Final Exam- LR1, VAN	--