ANNOUNCEMENTS
- (3 Oct) We will do the Mission to Mars lab this evening. BRING A CALCULATOR! Everyone needs to finish
and turn in the rotating star chart labs, and if you have not taken the celestial globes
quiz, you need to do that tonight.
- (19 Aug) Lab starts the second week of classes (i.e. 29 August). Our lab will
from 7 to 10 PM in room 108 SCIC (north end of building, down hall from lecture room).
Attendance is mandatory; it is generally not possible to make up a lab.
Most nights we will be working the entire
3 hour period, so keep your schedules clear on lab nights. Every week you
should bring the following items to lab: (1) The lab packet (binder, lab
manual, telescope manual, rotating star chart), (2) Your textbook, (3) a
small flashlight (not too bright or it will interfere with your ability to
see faint objects in the sky), (4) a calculator (ideally one with scientific
functions on it; the calculations will take forever if you use a cell phone
as a calculator). It is a campus requirement that you wear close-toed shoes
every night in lab (you will see why this is important the first week). No
flip-flops! Also, dress appropriately for working outside for several hours.
It is breezier and cooler on the roof (where we do our observing) than
it is down on the ground. Some of the labs involve crawling around on the
floor or splattering sand, so dress appropriately. I promise that we will
have a lot of fun, and I'll do my best to make sure you learn a lot, too!