Catalogue Description: An elementary course elaborating on such topics as black holes, pulsars, planetary structure, galactic structure, radio and X-ray astronomy (briefly covered in AS 101). Laboratory work in practical observing techniques: several night observing sessions on telescopes. (NSLD)  Assessment levels: EN 101/101A, MA 091. Three hours lecture, three hours laboratory each week.  4 semester hours

My Description: Topical List  Coordinates: Alt/Az Altitude Azimuth Coordinates, Celestial Equatorial Coordinates, Ecliptic Coordinates, Galactic Coordinates, Geocentric coordinates, Baracentric coordinates, Topocentric coordinates, and Helocentric coordinates.  Modern CCD cameras and image processing.  Spectra from radio to Gamma rays.  General Relativity and Cosmology.  CLEA labs installed on your computer from CD-ROM disc you received from your instructor: Radio Astronomy of Pulsars, Classification of Stellar Spectra, Astrometry of Asteroids, Search for Object X, The Period of Rotation of the Sun, The Flow of Energy Out of the Sun, Hubble Redshift Distance Relation, Large Scale Structure of the Universe, Photometric Photometry of the Pleiades, Moons of Jupiter, and Radar Rotation of Mercury.  Sundials Equitorial, Horizon, Capuchin (altitude), Analamatic, and Polorization.

Clientele: Anyone who wants to understand the bigger universe outside of this planet and has taken AS101 or understands the material in AS101 because they have taken a  comparable course at another college or  is an  amateur astronomer and has learned this material through experience.

Some of my assumptions about you as a student: That you have taken AS101 at Montgomery College on one of our campuses or it equivalent at another college; or you are an accomplish amateur astronomer and know some astronomy, but want to actually do some astronomy and you probably own a telescope or made your own or are thinking about buying or making your own scope. That you made an A, B, or C+ in your first astronomy course and enjoyied it so much that you wanted to learn more, probably made an A or B. That you own a computer and have an Internet connetion and know how to use it. That you know how to set priorities and make a schedule and will log on several times each week and do assignments and participate in Discussions under communications. That you want to go beyond just learning about some astronomy and would actually like to do some astronomy. This course will not make you into a professional astronomer, that takes from 4 years BS (in physics with the astronomy option) to 6 years MS (with a BS in physics, chemistry, or electrial engineering) to 8 years Ph.D., typical times after high school (I took longer, guess I was stupid). This course is also not Introductory Astrophysics a junior level course for physics majors at some place like the University of Maryland at College Park. This course does not require calculus or ordinary differential equaiton or mechanics (physics) or electromagnetism courses as a prerequisite. You will have to make some graphs and interpret some results. You will also have to do some simple arithmetic: addition, subtraction, mutiplication, and division and you will need to substitute numbers that are known into a simple equation. You should do this using a scientific calculator, like a TI-83, unless you like to torture yourself. You will not have to solve any algebraic equations. If you know how to solve algebraic equations for unknown quantities, that is good, but it will not help you in this course. I know the difference.

Prerequisite: Willingness to read, think, and communicate and AS101 or its equivalent in knowledge through experience.  Please go to this web sight and take the distance learning readyness test unless you have already successfully taken at least one distance learning class.

Course Materials

1. That you read the assigned portions on the Internet and take notes that will go into your Astronomy Portfolio.
2. That you will ask questions on the Internet reading and any assignments that you did not understand using the threaded discussion in the communication section.
3. That you will email me a number of labs when due.
4. That you will take a midterm test and a final exam.
5. That you will appreciate our place in the universe and understand how to go about discovering new what, where, and when of the universe.

1. Middle test given October 18-22, 2004 on line! will count 20%
2. Final test given December 20-21, 2004 on-line! will count 30%.
3. Participation in treaded discussion on line will count 10%.
4. Laboratory exercises and your astronomy portfolio that you will email to me in a timely fashion 40%. Obviously these labs are very, very important!

Montgomery College has a policy of encouraging writing across all curricula. The AS102 Electronic Portfolio a written record of your AS102 study and learning. Keeping this electronic portfolio will help you learn astronomy and keeping a portfolio in any class will help you understand and remember the course material. It will also help you get a substantially higher grade in the course. It will consist of several parts. Your portfolio should have the following parts.

1. Notes in outline form of "Homepage > COURSE MATERIALS > __Course Content." You should also include questions in here about things that you didn't understand when you read the text or watched the video. These questions you will ask me in our threaded discussions. I like to answer questions. Make me happy. Everything, definitions and all, should be expressed in your own words. You need to make astronomy real to yourself. Writing about it will help you do this. You have to organize your thoughts to write about them. Write as you read, please. Do not read an entire chapter in the text before summarizing it. Summarize subsections before going on to the next subsection.  If you have never studied this way before, please start doing it this way.  You will lean more, remember more, and understand more.  You will even work less for the same letter grade!

2. Laboratory exercises that you do. Always make a copy of your labs before you email me a copy.  CLEA, Contemporary Exercises in Astronomy, that you will install and run on your computer.  I will mail by post a CD-ROM that has the CLEA labs that you will install. Some of the most interesting things we will do all semester will be in these laboratory exercises.

Remember this is ultimately a portfolio for you. You can use your AS102 portfolio on the tests! It should be clear and neat enough so that not only another student can understand what you are doing, but that you can understand what you did when you look at it ten years from now.

The Washington Metro area is currently the naval of the planet earth (the capital of the only remaining superpower) and is culturally and scientifically one of the richest places. Write at least one page (around 250 words) about what you learned during an astronomy lecture or a clear night viewing through a telescope at an observatory. Please draw a sketch of anything that you saw though a telescope. Send me a copy, but keep one for yourself as it belongs in your journal.

• Lectures
• NCA, National Capital Astronomers, meets the first Saturday of the month at 7:30PM unless it occurs on the 5th of the month then we meet on the second Saturaday of the month, except in September we are meeting on Saturday, September 11 because of labor day holidays.  Your instructor is a long time member and is one of the webmaster; and was the president of NCA for two years and the vice-president for two years before that and has also served as trustee.  The public is invited.  We now meet at the University of Maryland's Observatory on Matzerott Road.  This organization has members of all types both amateur and professional astronomers.   Some of our members own telescopes some of our members do not own telescopes.  Some of our members do not know much about astronomy but are interested in learning more, some of our members know a lot about astronomy, and a few may know too much, if that is possible.
  
• Air and Space Museum Lectures on astronomy
• Goddard Scientific Colloquia, Friday afternoons public invited, but you must call at least 24 hours ahead to be cleared and these are scientific colloquia for other scientists not necessarily specialists.  This too being a federal facility is a pain to visit now.   I guess we will just have to wait until administrations change and we get federal chief executives with more backbone.
• Observatories
• USNO, United States Naval Observatory, open every Monday that is not a federal holiday and the federal government is not involved in foreign  adventure..
• UMD, University of Maryland at College Park has an observatory open on the 5th and 20th of every month on Metzerott Road in Prince George's County.
• Shows
• MC planetarium , public astronomy show (at these you actually get to see your professor Dr. Harold Williams).
• Einstein Planetarium at the Air and Space Museum on the mall.
• Rock Creek Nature Center Planetarium on Glover Road in NW DC.
• Maryland Science Center, Inner harbor Baltimore.
• Exhibits
• Natural History Museum on the mall in DC.
• Air and Space Museum on the mall in DC.
• MC Science Club meets Friday afternoon in the planetarium around 3pm this academic year.

Math Science Learning Center at Takoma Park
As you may need some assistance in understanding some labs and as three labs are done on the computer the Math Science Learning Center, MSLC, in Science North Room 101 has the computer astronomy labs already installed on at least 20 pentium computers.  There is also an assembled Learning Technologies celestial sphere, Learning Technologies spectroscope, and Learning Technologies telescope and other helpful aids in the MSLC to help you study for the exams and to do the labs.  For MSLC hours see http://montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/mslc/ .  As of September 3, 2002 the MSLC hours will most likely be Monday through Thursday: 8:30am -7:00 pm, Friday: 8:30 am - 3:00 pm, Saturday: 10:00 am-4:00 pm, and Sunday: closed.  Check the web for possible changes in hours of operation.

Changed last on August 8, 2005 at 10:06AM by Dr. Harold Alden Williams.