Honors Astronomy and Cosmology
Mr. Taylor
Fall 2022
Room: G235
Evening Observations
Next Observation is: September 14. Weather Permitting. 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm
So, what will we cover this Fall?
The Astro' course will focus on helping you develop these skills (not necessarily in this order):
1. Observations:
a. Using the eye, ground based telescopes (hands on), and archived images from major ground and space telescopes
b. Building telescopes – refractive and reflecting
c. Radio astronomy
d. Safely observing the sun
e. Visible Color Spectra
2. Scale, Navigation and Coordinate Systems
a. What is big, and what is small?
b. How to use the sky to find direction and tell time.
c. Magnitudes?
d. Guide stars and constellations
3. Imaging and Image Processing
a. Using (free) online tools the Pro’s use to do astronomy
b. Processing objects to see beyond the limits of the eye and discover the hidden
c. Constructing “magazine” images
4. Understanding our local star’s system
a. A tour of the space inside the Heliopause
b. A history of our understanding of planets and space
5. Understanding the Universe beyond our Solar System
a. Looking beyond the edge of the Solar System into deep space
b. Spectra
c. What are stars - fusion reactions and stellar evolution
c. Types of stars – the HR Diagrams and main sequence stars
d. Variables, blackholes and other cool things in space
e. What is mass? Gravity? Dark Matter? Relativity?
f. Models of the Universe
6. The Motion of Objects in Space and Computational Astrophysics
a. The orbital motion of space satellites, and celestial bodies
b. Tidal forces
c. The relative and absolute brightness and magnitudes of objects
d. Modeling phenomenon
e. Relativity
Images below...
What an exciting time to be a high school student studying astronomy!
The largest space telescope ever, the James Web Telescope, is operating for the first time and seems to be doing fantastic work.
NASA and SpaceX both have rockets with capability to travel to the moon; both planned to fly this year.
The sun is in solar maximum, sending out large explosions from its side, hurtling material into deep space
DART will impact an asteroid, as part of a study to see how we could divert a rogue killer asteroid headed towards the Earth.
Marvin Ridge students are able to take a course in Astronomy and Cosmology ("Astro")!
Having taught for nearly 30 years, my goal is for each of you to have a fun, learning, relevant experience. Astronomy can be tricky, and will push you to grow, but our hard work will open the heavens to you. Before long, you will be finding planets in the sky and accessing and processing NASA image files of deep space objects to find hidden forming stars and planetary moons. We will use the textbook as reference tools to help clarify, but will take a logical route to uncover the course content above.
