Download Study Guide for 1ST Astronomy Exam

Study Guide for 2ND Astronomy Exam
The successful student will be able to…
Unit 8: The Lunar Cycles
 Describe the daily and monthly apparent motion of the Moon and its relationship to the Zodiac.
 Draw and interpret Figure 8.1 illustrating the lunar phases and the Moon’s relationship to the Sun at each principle phase.
 Name the phase of the Moon from a photograph of the Moon.
 Estimate the number of days between lunar phases.
 Rank images of the Moon in different phases in order of occurrence first to last.
 Characterize the Moon’s apparent motion given its phase and the time of year.
 Explain why the lunar sidereal period is different than the time for a cycle of lunar phases.
Unit 10: Geometry of the Earth Sun and Moon
 Use the angular size relation to estimate the distance or true size of an astronomical object form a photograph.
Unit 11: Planets the Wandering Stars
 Describe the characteristics of the inferior and superior planets as regards their apparent motion in the sky. (Motion,
elongation, configuration while retrograde…)
 Work with and identify planetary configurations of opposition, conjunction, quadrature and maximum elongation.
 Describe the basic ideas of the Copernican model of the Universe.
o Location and Motion of the Earth
o Location of the planets and the observational basis for that ordering. (See Figure 11.10)
 Describe the cause of retrograde motion in our modern Copernican Model.
 Describe why inferior planets demonstrate a maximum elongation in their motion.
 Describe how Copernicus determined the relative distances of the planets from the Sun.
Unit 12: The beginnings of modern astronomy
 Discuss Galileo’s observations of the Sun. Moon, Jupiter and Venus and state how they contradicted the previously held
Aristotelian model of the Universe.
 Describe Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion and state how the first two laws were contrary to the previously held ideas
of Aristotle and Ptolemy.
Unit 16: The Universal Law of Gravitation
 Describe the characteristics of gravity in words and in an equation. (16.2)
 Describe and illustrate by example the nature of the inverse square law as it applies to gravity.
 State the significance of the low value for G.
Unit 17: Measuring a Body’s Mass using Orbital Motion
 Describe what an astronomer needs to observe to calculate the mass of a distance body using properties of the distant body’s
satellite.
Unit 18: Orbital and Escape Velocities
 Describe how the orbital velocity of an object in circular orbit depends on the distance from the central object and how the
orbital velocity depends on the mass of the central body.
 Describe how the mass of an orbiting object affects its orbital velocity.
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Use ratios to compare sizes of astronomical objects.
Use a proportion to calculate a scale model of an astronomical object.
Estimate the angular size of an object from a photograph with a known field of view.
Use the angular size relation to calculate an objects true size or distance.