Department of
Physics and Astronomy
Franklin & Marshall College
Spring 2007
For the independent projects, each person will select and follow up on a facet of observational astronomy not already covered in the course. Aside from a ~30 min. presentation given to the class on your topic, you will also submit a paper (with references) at the end of the course. I'll have more to say about these independent projects later in the semester. We will also have (almost) weekly problem sets which will be graded, and I plan to give a midterm and final exam.
The plan is to have the labs be closely tied to the lecture part of the course. Beth is teaching the labs, and we hope that the topics covered in the lectures in the first part of the course will support your lab activities throughout the semester. Beth will have more to say to you about labs soon.
Since physics plays a major role in the discussion and understanding of the topics in this course, I will make free use of physical concepts that are typically seen at the freshman and sophomore levels (for instance, physical optics and diffraction, to give an example). You should be familiar with physics at this level to keep up in the course.
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Lectures: Froney Crawford
Office: Hackman 421 Phone: (717) 358-4499 Email: fcrawfor@fandm.edu Office Hours: Tue and Thu 2:00-4:00 p.m. |
Labs: Beth Praton Office: Hackman 424 Phone: (717) 291-3810 Email: epraton@fandm.edu Office Hours: Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu 9:30-10:30 a.m. |
I reserve the right to adjust your grade to some extent at the end of the semester to reflect effort, conscientiousness, participation, etc.
Each of these books takes a slightly different approach and has a different emphasis and coverage, but taken together they provide the necessary background.
For the radio astronomy and X-ray portion of the course (and for your independent projects), you will need to pay close attention to the class notes and perhaps do some digging around on your own in some of the books in the library.