Here are some topics and terms you should understand from the lectures and Chapters 1-4 in Seeds, up to Galileo (this is what the test will cover. Again, this is merely guide for you to get an idea of what could be on the midterm. Be sure to study your notes, the text, and my on-line lecture notes!
| powers of ten | umbra | conjunction |
| metric system | penumbra | opposition |
| light year | lunar eclipse | quadrature |
| scale of the universe | solar eclipse | inferior planet |
| constellations | annular eclipse | superior planet |
| asterisms | partial/total eclipse | greatest elongation |
| names of stars | eclipse seasons | sidereal period |
| apparent magnitude | angular diameter | synodic period |
| intensity ratio | physical diameter | hypothesis |
| degrees/arcminutes/arcseconds | small angle formula | theory |
| geographic coordinates | aberration of starlight | paradigm |
| longitude/latitude | angular sizes of Moon and Sun | testing theories |
| celestial coordinates | transits of Mercury and Venus | science or philosophy? |
| right ascension/declination | occultation | Tycho Brahe |
| north/south celestial poles | Pythagoras | Johannes Kepler |
| Polaris | Aristotle | orbit of Mars |
| celestial equator | Aristotlean cosmology | ellipse and parabola |
| azimuth/elevation | cosmology | conic sections |
| elevation of the NCP | Alexandria, library of | foci and eccentricity |
| sidereal day/solar day | Aristarchus | semimajor axis |
| the ecliptic | heliocentric model | Kepler's Laws |
| inclination of Earth's axis | Eratosthenes | P^2 = a^3 |
| the equinoxes | determination of Earth's radius | astronomical unit (AU) |
| the solstices | Hipparchus | the (Roman) Inquisition |
| cause of the seasons | Ptolemy | Galileo Galilei |
| Earth's equatorial bulge | the {\it Almagest} | Galileo's mechanics |
| precession | Ptolemy's cosmology | Law of Inertia |
| nutation | epicycle and deferent | uniform acceleration |
| Moon's orbital inclination | eccentric and equant | the telescope |
| line of nodes | Nicholas Copernicus | phases of Venus |
| phases of the Moon | De Revolutionibus | moons of Jupiter |
| sidereal/synodic period of Moon | Copernican hypothesis | surface of Moon |
| tides | scale of solar system | sunspots |
| tidal locking of moon's rotation | parallax | Milky Way and star clusters |
| neap/spring tides | elongation | Galileo's Dialogue |
Remember, the midterm is Wednesday Feb 14 in class. Bring a calculator.
Go to the Lecture Notes Index
Back to the ASTR001/Sec3 Page
Steven T. Myers - Last revised 12Feb96