Astronomy 100/101Laboratories

Tom Burbine

Most Important Thing• This lab is 25% of your total grade for the class.

TAs

• Christine Brandon Zhon G. Butcher  (1/2 time)Timothy Conklin   Kathryn Ann Grasha (1/2 time)Shawn R. Roberts   

Review #1

• This man is OFF the wall. He's hilarious. I honestly look forward to this class like no other. He mumbles sometimes, but he is SO funny. Also, his brilliance is obvious. Take this guy's classes!

Review #2

• This class sucks. He doesn't teach anything. the powerpoints are indecipherable. the formulas don't make any sense. The tests are hard, and he sucks.

Review #3

• Like what everyone else said. Pretty straightforward teacher, you do need to study for the exams though if you want a good grade. Drops lowest test and a couple lowest HW's. He is funny at times.

Goals of the Lab

• The goals of the lab are to learn about the Sky.• Try to learn things that could be useful later in

life.

Requirement

• Everybody need to down Stellarium at• http://www.stellarium.org

• Stellarium is a free software program for looking at the night sky

Attendance

• You need to attend lab every other week and one observing section at Orchard Hill

• The lab will be broken up into two sections: Odd and Even

Odd and Even Mon. Sections

• Odd• •Sept. 19• •Oct. 3• •Oct. 17• •Oct. 31• •Nov. 14• •Nov. 28

• Even• •Sept. 26• •Oct. 11 (Tuesday, which is Monday schedule)• •Oct. 24• •Nov. 7• •Nov. 21• •Dec. 5

All Lectures

• All lectures will be made available at the website:• http://blogs.umass.edu/astron100-tburbine/

Assignments

• There will be in-class assignments every lab• But most of the assignments will be done on Spark• https://spark.oit.umass.edu

Grading• 20% - Class attendance – 6 Labs and one observing session at

Orchard Hill• 20% - 6 Lab Assessments on Spark – Drop lowest grade• 20% - 11 observations of the night sky (one per week) (drop lowest 2

grades) posted in Discussions on Spark plus one “What I learned” Post

• 20% - 11 observations of the Moon (one per week) (drop lowest 2 grades) posted in Discussions on Spark plus one “What I learned” Post

• 20% - 11 observations of sunset (one per week) (drop lowest 2 grades) posted in Discussions on Spark plus one “What I learned” Post

Observing Projects

• You will have 3 observing projects where you will make observations once a week– The sky– The Moon– The sunset

• Next lab, I will explain how to plan and do the observations plus how to post them on Spark

If you miss a Lab

• You should attend another Lab if possible• If you can’t , you need to give me an official

excuse (e.g., Dean’s note, Doctor’s note) to make it up

Orchard Hill Observatory

• UMASS observatory• http://www.astro.umass.edu/~orchardhill/

Orchard Hill• Every Thursday at dusk (weather permitting) with two

hour sessions• You need to attend one this semester• First day is this week (September 15th) (weather

permitting) from 8-9 pm and 9-10 pm• There will be signup for 30 people for each hour session

on Spark• Sessions may move to a different day if Thursday weather

is typically bad

Orchard Hill

Academic Honesty

• All work must be done by the individual.  Cheating will be considered direct copying from another individual or from a website or book.  Any assignment where cheating occurs will be given a grade of 0.

Any Questions?