To ancient civilizations the sky was a source of wonder and awe. The cycles of the sky - night and day, summer and winter - were an integral part of their life. Even today these cycles still affect us - our bodies follow day and night in waking and sleeping, and the seasons still regulate part of our social lives. This course will look at the origin of the cycles we see in the sky.
Various magazines about the sky have useful home pages on the web, including Sky and Telescope and Astronomy. There is also a nice site called learn whats up which has lots of general information, including star charts for the current month for our latitude. Alternatively, you can make your own using the online planetarium using yoursky (Durham is at 55 degrees North and 2 degrees West).
The PROVISIONAL title and aims of each lecture are given below, together with links to on-line resources. This page will get added to as term progresses, so keep checking to see what is here (and hit reload to make sure you are getting the most up to date version!).
|
Lecture 1 Stars |
Lecture 2 More stars |
Lecture 3 The Moon |
| Lecture 4 Planetarium show! |
Lecture 5 Planets |
Lecture 6 Comets, Asteroids, Meteorites and Impacts |