Telescopes outfitted with modern electronic cameras and spectrographs
are astronomers' primary tools for exploring the Universe. In this
lecture I review the primary types of telescopes and the best
observatory sites to locate them, with a brief mention of radio and
space telescopes. At the end, I give a brief review of the Ohio State's
observing facilitie ... Show More
Oct 2007
Lecture 29: The Earth's Atmosphere
What is the composition and structure of the Earth's atmosphere? Why is it as warm as it is, and how did it form? Today I will describe the composition and structure of the atmosphere, the Greenhouse Effect, the Primordial Atmosphere, and Atmospheric Evolution. The Earth's atmosp ... Show More
41m 51s
Mar 2006
Lecture 44: Life, the Universe, and Everything (Life Part II)
How can we search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and what are we looking for? This second part of a 2-part lecture picks up where we left off yesterday by examining SETI, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, and reviews what we might look for and how. We will use thi ... Show More
45m 56s
Sep 2006
Lecture 2: Astronomical Numbers
Before we can begin our exploration of astronomy, we need to develop a
common language for notating large numbers, and introduce the basic
units of length, mass, and time that we will use throughout the quarter.
We will first re-introduce the basic metric system, explaining how t ... Show More
43m 29s