Download Review Sheet: Electromagnetic Spectrum and Telescopes

Astronomy
Review Sheet: Electromagnetic Spectrum and Telescopes
Name_____________
Electromagnetic Spectrum
1. What is electromagnetic radiation and what does it do?
2. Electromagnetic Spectrum: what is the order of the parts from long to short wavelength, and how does energy
correspond to wavelength (i.e., is long wavelength high or low energy?).
3. How fast does electromagnetic radiation travel?
4. Describe how we have sight.
5. Describe wave motion.
6. Draw and label parts of a transverse wave. Know how to do this for the test.
7. What is frequency?
8. What is wavelength and what are its units?
9. What is the range of wavelengths for visible light?
10. Which wavelength do we see best? What color is this? Why do we see this best?
11. Describe radio waves, including wavelength (long or short) and its parts
12. Describe radio telescopes
13. What is resolution?
14. What is interferometry?
15. Describe the VLA
16. Describe the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, WV
17. Describe Arecibo
18. Describe the Very Long Baseline Array
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19. Describe the ALMA
20. Describe Infrared Radiation, including wavelength (long or short), and current telescopes that observe in
this part of the spectrum
21. Describe visible light, including colors from long to short wavelength.
22. What is the difference between different colors?
23. Describe Ultraviolet, including wavelength (long or short), and current telescopes that observe in this part
of the spectrum
24. Describe X-Rays, including wavelength (long or short), and current telescopes that observe in this part of
the spectrum
25. Describe Gamma Rays, including wavelength (long or short), and current telescopes that observe in this
part of the spectrum
Spectroscopy
26. What is spectroscopy?
27. What happens to cause absorption?
28. What happens to cause emission?
29. What can spectroscopy tell us about an object?
30. What is a spectroscope?
31. What is diffraction grating?
32. What are the three types of spectra?
33. Describe a continuous spectrum (what is it and how is it produced?)
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34. Describe an emission/bright line spectrum (what is it and how is it produced?)
35. Why can emission spectra be used to determine an object’s composition?
36. Describe an absorption/dark line spectrum (what is it and how is it produced?)
37. What astronomical objects give off an absorption spectrum?
38. What is the Doppler Effect?
39. What is red shift and what does it tell us about an object’s motion?
40. What is blue shift and what does it tell us about an object’s motion?
Telescopes
41. What kind of science is astronomy?
42. What are two ways in which experimentation is done indirectly?
43. “When” are we seeing when we look out into space?
44. How far into the past do we see when we observe our sun? The Andromeda galaxy?
45. What is the primary function of a telescope?
46. In which part of the spectrum do optical telescope observe?
47. Who first used the refracting telescope to observe space?
48. What is the objective in a refracting telescope?
49. What is the focus?
50. What does the eyepiece do?
51. Who invented the reflecting telescope?
52. What is the objective in a reflecting telescope?
53. What are the four disadvantages of refracting telescopes?
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54. Describe the Yerkes telescope
55. Describe the large reflecting telescopes in use today (Kitt Peak, Hale telescope, the Keck telescopes and the
Gran Telescopio Canarias)
56. Describe the Hubble telescope. Why does it have good resolution?
57. Describe CCD’s and their advantage
58. Describe adaptive optics
59. What are the two reasons to make bigger telescopes?
60. Describe how mirrors are made.
61. Describe the effects of earth’s atmosphere on observing
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L. Brown
Updated November 2012
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