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I occassionally show and use fancy presentations during lecture to make a particular point more clearly. I am providing copies of these presentation as they occur throughtout the semester so that you can review them outside of class. I hope they are useful. Some of these presentations are very graphical in nature, thus they make take a long time to view and load. I provide links to these *after* you see them in class.
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Presentation #8: Tides - We live in a geographical region of the United States that carefully monitors and makes use of tides. Tides are simply the daily rise and fall of water along our coastlines. What causes tides? What are high and low tides? [Powerpoint File: Tides.ppt]
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Presentation #11: Galileo Galilei to Isaac Newton - Galileo used a telescope to observe the heavens and make logical conclusions from those observations. Johannes Kepler, after appropriating Tycho's data of planetary positions, spent the next 29 years analyzing the observations and formulated three empirical laws of planetary motion. However, Kelper did not know "why" planets moved as they do, it took another century for before Isaac Newton provided an explanation to the idea of "motion" and gravity with his own set of three laws. Isaac Newton supplied the answers to “Why!?” [Powerpoint File: Galileo to Newton.ppt]
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Presentation #12: Light & Telescopes- The tools of an astronomer are the various telescopes that are available to view the heavens. Telescopes are, in essense, "light buckets" that collect light from the night (or daylight) sky. There are a multitude of techniques that can be used to analyze the light that telescopes collect. Refracting and reflecting telescopes are also discussed. [Powerpoint Files: Light.ppt & Telescopes.ppt]
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Presentation #14: Atoms & Starlight - Astronomers use any trickle of light to decipher information about an object's physical make-up. This will help you understand the intertwining of atoms (periodic table of elements) and light. This illustrates Continuous, Emission, and Absorption Spectra as well as how atoms produce the results seen. This is the "light fingerprint" that helps us identify what things are made of chemically. [Powerpoint File: Spectra.ppt]
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Presentation #19: A Star is Born - Using many "snapshots" of a stars life, we can come up with a observational theory as to the process that lead up to the birth of a new star. Looking at large interstellar clouds, stellar nurseries, bok globules, proplyds, and more. [Powerpoint File: Birth.ppt]
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Presentation #21: The Fate of Stars .... First comes a main sequence stage then follows the red giant stage, then.... ultimately a very strange object will emerge - white dwarf, neutron star, or blackhole. So how soon will this occur? Come to class and find out. [Powerpoint Files: StarDeath.ppt & BigDeath.ppt]
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Presentation #22: The Milky Way Galaxy - A tour of our home galaxy is a tough process. Imagine trying to figure out your own "looks" without the use of a mirror. We are residents inside the Milky Way galaxy so we have to use unique observations to describe the overall structure, look, size, and processes that are occurring in the Milky Way. [Powerpoint File: MilkyWay.ppt]
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Presentation #23: A Menagerie of Galaxies - There are many galaxies to look at, so how can we draw any conclusions about them? Astronomers classify galaxies based on looking at physical characteristics and then explore the details of the morphology of galaxy types. [Powerpoint Files: Galaxies.ppt & AlienGalaxies.ppt - You will need to “view the slideshow” on AlienGalaxies to watch the videos.]
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