ASTR 311 Homework & Recommended Activities

(Fall 2011)

Reading Assignments:

  1. (by 12 Sep) Textbook Sections 1.2-1.4
  2. (by 14 Sep) Textbook Sections 1.6-1.7
  3. (by 26 Sep) Textbook Sections 1.5
  4. (by 28 Sep) Textbook Sections 3.1-3.2
  5. (by 10 Oct) Textbook Sections 4.3 and 4.4
  6. (by 19 Oct) Textbook Chapter 3
  7. (by 31 Oct) Textbook Sections 5.1, 5.2, and 5.5
  8. (by 7 Nov) Textbook Sections 6.1, 6.2, 6.5
  9. (by 14 Nov) Textbook Sections 6.6, 6.7, and 6.8

Take-Home Exams:

Problem Sets:

  1. (due 2 Sep) RA & Dec; Altitude & Azimuth; Latitude & Longitude
  2. (due 14 Sep) Parallax, Proper Motion, Magnitudes
  3. (due 21 Sep) Measuring Mass With Binary Stars
  4. (due 30 Sep) The Planck Function; Wien's Law; Stephan's Law
  5. (due 10 Oct) TE Distributions; Bohr Atom
  6. (due 21 Oct) Your Star as a Case Study for Spectroscopy
  7. (due 14 Nov) Fusion Fundamentals

Final Paper and Presentation

Other Activities:

  1. The Celestial Globes
  2. Properties of Your Assigned Star
  3. (for 4 November) Be able to give a brief overview of the interior structure of "your star". Is it fully radiative or fully convective? Is it a mixture with convection layers above radiative layers, or vice versa? Does your star require equations of state other than the ideal gas? Is it a rapid rotator or very close binary or accreting or losing mass or very magnetic or something else that would affect interior structure models?