Status: Approved for review release; not yet approved for instructional use. See review-report.md for full findings and outstanding items.
Course Planning
- Syllabus: syllabus.html
- Schedule: schedule.html
- Reference log: reference-log.md
- Review report: review-report.md
- Course manifest: course-manifest.json
Lectures
- Lecture 01: Describing Radiation: Flux, Intensity, and the Electromagnetic Spectrum — slides · notes
- Lecture 02: The Blackbody Radiation Law: From Planck's Function to Stefan-Boltzmann and Wien — slides · notes
- Lecture 03: Radiative Transfer: Optical Depth and the Equation of Transfer — slides · notes
- Lecture 04: Why Spectral Lines Look the Way They Do: The Boltzmann and Saha Equations — slides · notes
- Lecture 05: Hydrostatic Equilibrium: What Holds a Star Up — slides · notes
- Lecture 06: The Virial Theorem: Gravity, Kinetic Energy, and Self-Gravitating Systems — slides · notes
- Lecture 07: Gravitational Potentials: The Shell Theorem, Potential Energy, and Escape Velocity — slides · notes
- Lecture 08: The Two-Body Problem: Deriving Kepler's Laws from Newtonian Gravity — slides · notes
- Lecture 09: Weighing Binary Stars: Visual, Spectroscopic, and Eclipsing Methods — slides · notes
- Lecture 10: Tidal Forces and the Roche Limit — slides · notes
- Lecture 11: Orbital Energy, the Vis-Viva Equation, and Orbital Transfers — slides · notes
- Lecture 12: Beyond Two Bodies: Lagrange Points and Hierarchical Multiple Systems — slides · notes
- Lecture 13: Radiation Pressure and the Eddington Luminosity — slides · notes
- Lecture 14: Synthesis: Triangulating a Real Star System from Independent Physical Laws — slides · notes
Labs
- Lab 01: Verifying the Blackbody Radiation Law for the Sun and Alpha Centauri A/B
- Lab 02: Optical Depth and the Boltzmann Excitation Equation
- Lab 03: Hydrostatic Equilibrium (the Sun) and the Virial Theorem (M15)
- Lab 04: Weighing Alpha Centauri AB with Kepler's Third Law
- Lab 05: Splitting a Binary's Mass and Computing Tidal Effects
- Lab 06: Interplanetary Transfer Orbits and Gravitational Hierarchy
- Lab 07: Capstone: A Complete Physical Characterization of Alpha Centauri AB
Problem Sets
- PS 01: Blackbody Radiation: Wien's Law and Stefan-Boltzmann for Sirius A — problem set · solutions · assessment instructions
- PS 02: Optical Depth Attenuation and the Boltzmann Equation for Vega — problem set · solutions · assessment instructions
- PS 03: Hydrostatic Equilibrium for Alpha Centauri A and the Virial Mass of 47 Tucanae — problem set · solutions · assessment instructions
- PS 04: Weighing the Sirius AB System with Kepler's Third Law — problem set · solutions · assessment instructions
- PS 05: Mass-Ratio Splitting and Tidal Effects at Europa — problem set · solutions · assessment instructions
- PS 06: A Hohmann Transfer to Venus and the Sun-Earth vs. Sun-Jupiter L1 Points — problem set · solutions · assessment instructions
- PS 07: Capstone Synthesis: Radiative and Dynamical Cross-Checks for Sirius AB — problem set · solutions · assessment instructions
Source Code and Data
- Generator scripts: src/generate_astr310_content.py (lectures), src/generate_astr310_labs_psets.py (labs/problem sets)
- Datasets: data/README.md