Earth, Moon, and Planets Lab, Spring 2006
Roban Hultman Kramer
Columbia University Astronomy Department
Columbia University Astronomy Department
- Attendance Policy
- Materials and preparation for labs
- Lab notebooks
- Grading
- Lab dates
Getting Started in Astronomy flyer from Sky & Telescope
Exercise set one [latex]- Discussion: The sky
- Discussion: The solar system
- On paper: The sidereal day
- Indoor: visualizing the sky
- Computer: using planetarium software
- Indoor: Learn to use a sextant
- Computer: Latitude, longitude, and time
- On paper: Finding longitude from transit times
- Outdoor: A first look at the sky
- Outdoor: A second look at the sky
- On paper: Introduction to celestial coordinates
- Indoor: Calibrate your hand to measure angles
- Indoor: Measure angles with your hand
- Outdoor: Measure angles with your hand
- Outdoor: Measuring the positions of planets
- Outdoor: Measure angles between buildings with your hand
- Analysis: Plotting the positions of planets
- Long-term outdoor: Tracking the positions of planets
- Indoor: Parallax through a window
- On paper: Periods, velocities, and radii of circular orbits
- Computer: Orbit Explorer
Observation Project (updated 2006-03-07):
Assignment
[latex]
Star Chart for plotting planets.
- Catching up
- Telescope observing I}
Gas tube comparison spectra (from this page.)
- Lighting Spectroscopy
- Identifying lighting
- Spectroscopy of known gasses
- Spectroscopy of unknown gasses
Extra materials needed for the exoplanet lab.
NASA worksheet on Solar mass ejection velocities.
- Extrasolar planet detection
- Explosions from the Sun
- Movies of the Sun
- Outdoor: Observing Saturn
- Outdoor: Measuring the Field of View
- On paper: The Mass of Saturn
- Analysis: Motion of the planets