Astronomy 121 (O'Connell)
Study Guides
Spring 2002
Lectures in this course will not always closely follow the
textbook, and some will be entirely independent of it. To help you
coordinate the material, study guides for the lecture presentations
will be posted here, usually the day before the relevant lecture.
Most guides are in HTML format for easiest retrieval over the Web, but
you may need an Adobe PostScript or
Acrobat reader for material in PS or PDF formats.
To take full advantage of the guides, you should print out a hardcopy
of each guide before the lecture, read over it, and bring it to class
with you. The main points and some of the more important figures are
included, but you should plan to fill in details and other presented
material with your own notes.
These Guides have white text on a dark background because they
project better that way in class. Most browsers and printers should
automatically reverse the sense of the lettering (leaving the images
untouched) when you press the "PRINT" button, so your hardcopy will be
black-on-white. However, some browsers apparently don't do this by
default. A symptom of a problem is that only the images appear
on the printout.
If you have trouble making hardcopies, try using a PC (not a MAC) and
Internet Explorer as your browser. Use the "Print Preview" feature
under the File menu to see what your print will look like. You can
adjust printing parameters if it's not right.
Web links to other useful information or pertinent illustrations are
included on the guides and on the
ASTR 121 Web
Links page. You are encouraged to use these to make the subject
matter more interesting or clear...but you are not required to know
any of this additional material unless it is discussed in class or
listed under "Homework" on a study guide.
The study guides will help you catch up if you miss an occasional
lecture, but they won't serve as adequate substitutes for attending
the lectures.
Note: the guide numbers are not in one-to-one correspondence with
individual lectures.
Back to the ASTR 121 Home Page
Last modified
April 2002 by rwo
Text copyright © 1998-2002 Robert W. O'Connell.
All rights reserved. These notes are intended for the private,
noncommercial use of students enrolled in Astronomy 121 at the
University of Virginia.