Unsolved Mysteries in the Universe is an introductory astronomy course for non-science majors.  It focuses on the great unsolved problems in modern astronomy, including mysteries such as "What is inside of a black hole?", "What came before the Big Bang?", or "Are there Other Intelligent Species in the Universe?"  No prior astronomy courses are required to take ASTR 1270.

Lecture Notes:

A list of lecture dates and topics can be found below.

Text:

For my summer 2019 section of ASTR 1270, you are not required to purchase anything. This semester, I am experimenting with free resources to try to reduce the costs to students. For a textbook, we will be using the free, online textbook OpenStax Astronomy by Fraknoi, Morrison, and Wolff. You can access the OpenStax textbook online by clicking on this link OpenStax Astronomy. I have also placed a PDF copy of the textbook in the Resources tab of this Collab site. You can access that with this link OpenStax Astronomy PDF.

I also highly recommend that you download and install a free copy of the planetarium program Stellarium, but it is not required.

Grades:

Your grade will be based on 3 quizzes, a final exam, in-class presentation, final report, in class exercises, and a telescope observing lab. On a 1000 point scale each is worth: 

 

Quiz 1	100 points	Monday July 15, 1:00-2:00 p.m.
Quiz 2	100 points	Monday July 22, 1:00-2:00 p.m.
Quiz 3	100 points	Monday July 29, 1:00-2:00 p.m.
Final Exam	200 points	Friday August 2, 1:00 p.m.to 3:30 p.m.
Presentation	150 points
Report	150 points
In class exercises	100 points
Telescope Observing Lab	100 points

 

The final exam is fully comprehensive. It will be approximately twice as long as a quiz and in the same general style.

Grades will be posted on the UVa Collab site http://collab.itc.virginia.edu in the Gradebook tab on the left. Your final grade is based on 1000 points with letter grades assigned as follows:

Letter Grade	Point range	Letter Grade	Point Range
A+	970-1000	C	730-769
A	930-969	C-	700-729
A-	900-929	D+	670-699
B+	870-899	D	630-669
B	830-869	D-	600-629
B-	800-829	F	0-599
C+	770-799	Pass	600-1000

 

 

I will send official correspondence via electronic mail. Therefore, you should immediately activate your U. Va. e-mail account if you have not already done so. If you use a mail service other than the University's, be sure to have your University mail forwarded to it. You will be responsible for reading all materials sent via electronic mail.

Attendance Policy:

It is in your best interest to attend class regularly. During most classes you will be asked to answer a number of questions. Credit will only be given for answers completed during class. You must attend the scheduled quizzes and the final exam. See me at least two lectures before an exam if you have a conflict. Makeup exams are given only at the discretion of the instructor.

You must turn off your cell phone before class begins.

 

Please do not hold conversations with other students during the class.

 

If you bring a laptop or tablet computer to class, please be respectful of me and the other students in the class.  I ask that you restrict your use to class related note-taking and research. Working on non-class related projects is distracting to the students around and behind you and is distracting to me.

Honor Code:

As a graduate of the University of Virginia, I take the honor code very seriously. I assume that all exams and labs are bound by your honor to be your own work, even if you did not explicitly sign the pledge. In class you will, at times, be asked to work in groups. In these cases, I expect everyone in the group to contribute to the answer. I would consider it an honor violation if you submit a groups' answer but did not contribute to the discussion. If you are not sure what is allowed ask me to clarify.

Telescope Observing:

To complete this lab, you must attend a public night at McCormick Observatory (Friday July 19 9:00-11:00 p.m. or Friday August 2 9:00-11:00 p.m.) and you will obtain images with a robotic telescope at UVa's Fan Mountain Observatory.  

Additional Help:

I strongly encourage you to take advantage of my office hours. I am always happy to meet with you to discuss the material and answer questions.

There are additional UVa-only syllabus items for this course. Click here to view all the public and UVa-only syllabus items. This link is restricted to UVa-members with Netbadge authentication.