University of Mississippi

ASTR 101


Copernicus

Monday, September 9, 2013

 Announcements: ID and Top Hat reminders.
 Today's Topics: The Sky last night, Venus;
Review: Questions on eclipses.

Early History of Astronomy
Planet motion: Regular vs retrograde; Mars.
Parallax: The concept, and its importance.
Aristotle: Ideas on motion, geocentric model.
Ptolemy: An elaborate model with epicycles.
Aristarchus: Distances and heliocentric model.
Others: Eratosthenes, Hipparchus (star catalog, magnitudes, ...); Other cultures.
Renaissance Astronomy and
The Copernican Revolution

Copernicus: His model and explanation.
Tycho Brahe: Fame, model and Observatory.
Galileo: Inertia, the Milky Way, the Sun, the Moon and Jupiter's moons, phases of Venus.
Johannes Kepler: Law of ellipses, law of areas and law of periods.

 Assignment: Sections 3.2 and 3.3 of the book; Today's class summary; Lecture notes.

Spaceweather; APOD; Heavens-Above; Clear Sky Clock; PhysOrg Astronomy News; The Sky at a Glance


Main  |  Schedule  |  Notices |  Syllabus  |  Grades