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Introduction to Astrophysics

Andrew Liddle

Movie credit: The Virgo consortium

Introduction to Astrophysics

Department of Physics and AstronomyTerm 1, Autumn 2005

Aims: to explain primarily at a descriptive level the contents, dimensions and history of the Universe. This will include a survey of the basic astronomical tools, and will seek to explain the way in which some basic physical laws can be applied in order to understand the observed phenomena.

Course times

The course has two lectures per week, which are

Monday at 11am and Thursday at 3pm

both in Chichester 3R241.

These are supported by a weekly workshop on

Friday at 9am

in Pevensey 2A12. All classes will start promptly.

As the course is just starting, there will be no workshop on Friday 7th.

Assessment

Assessment for Introduction to Astrophysics is entirely based on

coursework carried out during the term.

There will be four problem sheets, each contributing 10% of the

overall assessment, and one end-of-term quiz contributing 60%.

The quiz will take place in the workshop session of week 9, i.e. on

Friday December 2nd.

The marks for this course do not contribute to your final degree

result, but you may be required to pass it to progress to the second

year, depending on your degree program and overall average.

Lecturer

Andrew Liddle Arundel room 204

a.liddle@sussex.ac.uk

Office hour: Thursday 11:30 to 12:30. Please try and

use it and the workshop in the first instance if you

have problems.

Check out the course WWW site for additional

information and links to useful resources.

On the WWW

Please bookmark the course WWW page, as given in the

course document, for later use:

astronomy.susx.ac.uk/~andrewl/intast.html

As well as giving up-to-date course information, the page will

contain links to various electronic resources supporting this

course. For example, you will easily be able to follow links to

find the pictures you are about to see.

The WWW site will include access to all the PowerPoint

slides for the lectures, building up as term proceeds.

Course textbooks

For astronomy students and other keen students, I suggest

21st Century Astronomy by Hester et al, though it is on

the expensive side.

If you are on a tight budget, Introductory Astronomy by

Holliday is an alternative.

Your course document lists several other books that you might

find useful for consultation in the library.

If you buy on the internet, don’t go straight to Amazon. Use www.bookbrain.co.uk to get the best deal.

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The Hubble Space Telescope

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What can we see with the Hubble Space Telescope?

NEPTUNE

URANUS

MARS

STARS

STAR CLUSTER

GLOBULAR STAR CLUSTER

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THE EAGLE NEBULA

THE RING NEBULA

ETA CARINAE: A DYING STAR

THE HOURGLASS NEBULA

A SPIRAL GALAXY

A GALAXY UNDERGOING STARBURSTS

THE CARTWHEEL GALAXY

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And that was all just showing optical wavelength radiation ….

Reminder: what’s next

Next “Introduction to Astrophysics” Class:

Thursday at 3pm

(no class on Friday morning)