9/7: Class Intro 09/07/2010

What is Astronomy?
 Definition:
o The scientific study of everything we can see in the sky
 Astrology: the unscientific study of how stuff in the sky affects life
on Earth.
o BS

Difference between a solar system and a galaxy

 solar system (or star system)
o A star, its planets, and anything else that is revolving around
the star.
 The Solar System
o Our star system (around our sun)
 Galaxy
o Giant collection of stars, gas, and dust that is all held
together by gravity
o Generally between about 100 million  over 1 trillion star
 Milky Way Galaxy
o Our Galaxy, about average sized
o ~100 Billion Stars
o ~100,000 Light Years across
o We are about 2/3 of the way out from the center of our
galaxy
 About 25,000 light years from the center
Light Year
 The distance that light travels in one year
o =~10 Trillion km
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Exponential Notation
 1000000000= 10^9
 0.000000578= 5.78*10^7
Rule:
 Count # of zeros (or every number after the first one)
o 5,400,000= 5.4*10^6
 You only ever want one thing before the decimal point
 For small numbers, you see how far the decimal needs to be moved
to get to the right of the first number
o Count how many times you have to move the decimal o the
right until you hit the first non zero number
 Going from Scientific Notation to ugly (regular) notation
o Positive Exponents
Move the decimal to the right as many times as the
exponent tells you to
o Negative Exponents
 Move decimal to the left from the right of the right
number the # of thes as the exponent
Multiplying Exponents:
 10^a * 10^b= 10^(a+b)
 10^a / 10^b = 10^(a-b)
 1 / 10^a = 10^-a
 10^0=1
 (X*10^a) * (Y*10^b) = (X*Y)*(10^a*10^b)
Metric System
 10^9= giga-
 10^6= mega-
 10^3= kilo-
 10^-2= centi-
 10^-3= milli-
 10^-6= micro-
 10^-9= nano-

Unit Conversions
 1km__mm

Distance problems
 D=v*t
 Distance equals velocity times time
 Ex. How many meters do you travel in 20 seconds at a rate of
10m/s
o D= v*t, d= 10*20, d=200
 Ex. How many feet do you go in 1 second if you go 60 mph
o D=v*t= 60mph * 1 sec
 Ex. How long does it take to get to Mars if we are going 1,000
km/hr
o D=v*t, v=1000 km/hr, D=80M (or 8.0*10^7)km
o T=d/v= 8.0*10^7km/ 10^3 km/hr
o 8*10^4 hr/24/365= 9.1324 years
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Winter Solstice
 Shortest day of the year, and the shortest day of the year. Sun is
the lowest angle on the horizon
Spring Equinox
 Axis points at tight angles to the sun. Equal hours of light and dark
(12) ad the sun appears directly overheard at the equator

Polar Night: Period when the sun never rises above the horizon (only
happen at N and S poles)

Precession of the Earth’s Axis:

 Over time, the direction of the Earth’s Axis changes (but angle
stays the same)
o 26000 year cycle

Fact: The starts appear to move from east to west in the sky over a night
because of the Earth’s daily spin about its axis

Fact: Over the course of many nights, the stars appear to change location in
the sky, moving form east to west because of the earth’s yearly orbit around
the sun.

Fact: The seasons are an effect of the Earth’s axis, which causes us to
receive more direct sunlight during some parts of the year (summer) and
less direct sunlight during others (winter)

Fact: Precession causes the direction of the Earth’s axis to change over a
long period of time, sweeping out a circle in the sky every 26,000 years

Libation
 Left to right wobble over the course of the month
o Due to two factors
 Geosynchronous Orbit
 Slighly Eliptical Orbit
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Eclipses
 Lunar
o The Earth comes between the moon and the sun, and the
moon appears dark
 Solar
o The Moon comes between the sun and the Earth, and the
moon blocks the view of Sun from the Earth

2 Necessary Conditions for an eclipse

 Moon must be either in Full or New phase
 The Nodes must be aligned with the Sun and the Earth
o The Nodes are the points in the Moons orbit at which the
moon lies in the same plane as the Earth and the Sun

Because nodes line up only twice a year, you can have at most 2 eclipses
per year

Precession of the Moon’s Nodes:

 The motn in which he moon’s nodes line up change slowly every
year, so “eclipse season” is different every year
o Runs on an 18.5 year cycle
 Called the Saros Cycle
Eclipses 09/07/2010
Types of Eclipses
 Solar Eclipse
o The Moon is between the earth (new moon) and it blocks the
sun
o 3 Types
 Total Solar Eclipse
 The Moon entirely blocks the view of the sun from
the earth.
 You are in the Moon’s Umbra
 Partial Solar Eclipse
 Moon partially blocks the sun, but we can still see
some of the suns surface
 You are in the moons Penumbra
 Annular Solar Eclipse
 The Moon only blocks the center part of the sun,
and we can still see the outer ring
 Moons Shadow onto the Earth is called the Umbra

Umbra
Penumbra

Annular Eclipse:
Happens when the moon is farther from the Earth in its orbit and does not
entirely cover the sun, so it leaves a ring around the outside

Lunar Eclipse
 Total Lunar Eclipse
o All of the Moon is in the Earth’s Umbra, appears dark and
reddish in color
 Turns red because red light passes through the
atmosphere of Earth, and blue light does not as easily
 Partial Lunar Eclipse
o Part of moon appears in the Earth’s Umbra, the rest is in the
penumbra
 Penumbral Lunar Eclipse
o Moos is Entirely in the Earths Penumbra
 Appears slightly darker (usually not detectable by the
human eye)
 Umbra
 Penumbra


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The History of Astronomy
Important Figures in Astronomy
 Aristotle (350 BC)
o “Heavenly Spheres” system of nested spheres containing
everything in Universe; Revolved around Earth producing
motions in the sky
 Ptolemy (100 AD)
o Saw Retrograde motion
o The planets moved backwards briefly in terms of how we
view it


o Introduced epicycles in planets spheres to account for
retrograde motion
 Smaller loops within a bigger loop
o Wrote “The Amalgamist”
 First textbook on astronomy
o Now known as the “Ptolemaic model of Earth-centered
(geocentric) universe”
 Stood for 1600 years
 Copernicus (1500AD)
o Wrote “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”
o The Revolution
o Said 5 Things:
 Sun is at the center of the Universe
 Stars are very far away from the sun (don’t move)
 Daily Motions of the Stars and sun explained by the
Earth’s rotation about its axis
 Yearly motions of the Sun through the Zodiac is caused
by the Earth’s orbit around the sun
 Retrograde motion is simply an effect of the planets’
relative distances to the sun
o Heliocentric- sun centered
 o Model was revolutionary, BUT did not:
 Predict positions of the planets any more accurately
than Ptolemy
 Use gravity to explain why planets orbit the sun
 Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)
o Discovered the first supernova
o Got famous and jump started his career
o Built a new state of the art observatory (no telescope)
o Took painstaking measurements of positions of stars and
planets for the last 25 years of life
 Johannes Kepler (1571-1631)
o Used Tycho’s data of the orbit of Mars to develop 3
mathematical laws governing the motions of the planets
o Laws allowed him to predict to very high accuracy the potions
of the planets
o Published Astronomy Nova
 First truly quantitative model of the Universe
 Galileo (1564-1642)
o Was a contemporary of Kepler
o First to use a telescope of observe the heavens
 Specifically used telescope to observe Jupiter
 Saw 2-4 dots around Jupiter, and realized that
they were moons orbiting Jupiter
 Discovered 4 moons- now known as “Galilean
Moons”
o Disproved the Geocentric model of the universe
 Showed that there are objects orbiting something other
than the earth
o Discovered Sunspots on the sun
 Not a perfect circle
o Discovered phases of Venus
 Venus orbits sun and not Earth
o Wrote Dialogue Concerning Two Chief World Systems
  Was placed on house arrest, publicly denounced the
book, and book was banned
 Isaac Newton (1643-1727)
o First real physicist
o Wrote 3 basic laws of motion
F=ma
Equal and opposite forces
Things in motion stay in motion stay in motion unless
forces act on it
o Universal Law of Gravitation
 There is an attractive force between all bodies of the
universes stronger as the masses of the bodies
increase, and weaker as you get farther apart
o First true Physical model of the universe
 Explains how universe works using physical laws
 More fundamental than Kepler’s laws of motion
 Using them, you can derive Kepler’s laws
 F= (GM1M2)/(d^2)
 Double first mass- double force
 Double second mass- double force
 Double both masses- quadruple force
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 Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
o Published Theory of Reltivity
 Special Relativity
 Deals with motion at VERY high speeds
 Time is not a constant, it slows down as you
travel faster
 o “Time Dilation”
 Length contracts as you go faster
 No object (besides light) can ever travel at the
speed of light
 Set fundamental speed limit for the
universe
 General Relativity
 Replaces Newton’s theory of Gravity
 Predicts black holes
 More generally, predicts objects so dense
that not even light can escape
 Introduced concept of spacetime
 Time is a 4th dimension of space, the only
difference is that you can only travel
forwards through time
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Light (Electromagnetic Radiation)
 Travels in a little “packet” called a photon
 *f=c
o Example
 Wavelength of light is 500nm, What is frequency?
 = 500 nm x (10^-9m/1nm)= 5*10^-7m
 c= 3*10^8 m/s
 f=c/
 E=hf
 max= 2900000/T nm
o max= peak wavelength
o 2900000= constant
o T= temperature (in Kelvin)
1/sec= Hertz
 A measure of frequency: how many times per second

Wein’s Law
 The Wavelength of light is inversely proportional to the temp of the
object emitting it
o As an object heats up, its light starts becoming bluer and
bluer

Examples
 Surface of the sun is ~5800K. What is max?
o max=2900000/T=2900000/5800 nm= 500nm
 What is our peak wavelength
o Body Temp:98.6°F to Kelvin 310K
o max=2900000/310nm=9,300nm=9.3m
o Middle of IR range
Types  F Temp of Actual 
of emitting
Light object
Gamm shortest highest highest <1nm
a
X-Ray 1-10nm
UV 10-400nm
Visible 400-700nm
IR 700nm-1mm
Radio longest lowest coolest >1mm

Visible
 R= ~700nm
 O= ~650nm
 Y= ~600nm
 G= ~550nm
 B= ~500nm
 I= ~450nm
 V= ~400nm
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Why do we use telescopes
 More Detailed images
o Angular Resolution
The Smallest separation between two objects that we
can still see them as 2 objects
 The smaller angle you can resolve the better
 Seeing Dimmer Objects
o Light Gathering Power
 The amount of light a telescope can collect
o The LGP of a telescope is proportional to its area (of the lens
or mirror)
o OR the LGP is proportional to radius squared
 Angular Resolution becomes twice as good (min halved) if you
double the side of the telescopes’ lens diameter
o But LGP quadruples
o Changing the size of a telescope increases the ability to see
fainter objects more than detail
Two Types of Telescopes
 Refracting
o Uses Lenses
o Advantages
 Easy to align, keep in alignment
 Airtight- less cleaning
o Disadvantages
 Limiting size where it will be effective
 Primary lens cannot be too heavy
 “Chromatic Aberration”
 bends/focuses different wavelengths differently
 Blurrier image because not all light is
focused at the same point
 Reflecting
o Uses Mirrors
o Advantage
 Can support massive primary mirror, it can be as big as
you can make a mirror
 No chromatic abberation
 Reflects instead of bending it
o Disadvantages
 More difficult to keep in alignment
 Difficulty making/moving large mirrors