Location: 331B North Kedzie Laboratory
Lab Manual: Visions of the Universe, by Beers, Daly, Kuhn, Loh, Parker, & Simkin,
Hayden-McNeil, 7th edition
Supervisor: Robert Stein, PA 310, 353-8661, email steinr@pilot.msu.edu
Office Hours: Tuesdays: noon - 2 pm, or by appointment
Instructors: Jennifer Church, Steven Desch, Dan Hale, Karen Kinemuchi, Regner Trampedach
PA 318, 353-9920
Email: church@pa.msu.edu, desch@pa.msu.edu, hale@pa.msu.edu, kinemuchi@pa.msu.edu, trampedach@pa.msu.edu
Questions, Comments, and Discussion
Comments, critisism, complements, questions and
discusion can be submitted via the web at
http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/ISP205L/comment_file.html.
The comments of others can be viewed at
http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/ISP205L/commentpage.html.
ISP 205L is the laboratory part of ISP 205, "Visions of the Universe." The goals of ISP 205L are to reinforce concepts introduced in ISP 205 lecture with concrete examples and to illustrate how one makes deductions from observations. The laboratory meets once a week for 1 hour 50 minutes. The first lab meets on Tuesday January 19. If your lab is scheduled for Monday 1/18, come to any other section for this first week only. The dates for the labs are shown below.
| Lab | Dates | Topic |
| 0 | 1/19 -- 1/22 | Meet your TA / Lab Policies |
| 1 | 1/25 -- 1/29 | Observing the Night Sky |
| 2 | 2/1 -- 2/5 | Appearance of the Night Sky |
| 3 | 2/8 -- 2/12 | Math, Measurements, and Making Plots |
| 4 | 2/15 -- 2/19 | The Solar System |
| 5 | 2/22 -- 2/26 | Moon/Images |
| 6 | 3/1 -- 3/5 | Measuring Distances with Parallax |
| 3/8 -- 3/12 | Spring Break | |
| 7 | 3/15 -- 3/19 | Spectra |
| 8 | 3/22 -- 3/26 | Solar Rotation |
| 9 | 3/29 -- 4/2 | Light Curve of a Variable Star |
| 10 | 4/5 -- 4/9 | Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram of a Star Cluster |
| 13 | 4/12 -- 4/16 | Galaxy Collisions |
| 12 | 4/19 -- 4/23 | The Big Bang |
To succeed in ISP 205L, YOU MUST PREPARE BEFORE COMING TO THE LAB. Read the lab manual and assignments in the lab textbook and do the preliminary questions. Laboratories are very different from lecture classes. Much of the initiative rests with the student and it is easy to "go through the motions" of each lab without understanding the underlying concepts. The lab time is surprisingly short, so to make the best use of the time you must prepare for the lab beforehand. Read the lab once to get a general understanding of what you will be expected to accomplish, then read it again in order to obtain a more detailed understanding.
To succeed in ISP 205L, talk to your lab partners and the lab instructor. You will be working in groups of two students for most of the labs (in exceptional cases you may be asked to work in groups of more than two). Make the most of your partner: ask him/her for help; test your understanding of by explaining ideas to him/her. However, each student is expected to write up their own answers. Your lab instructor will help by answering your questions, but the primary responsibility is yours.
The course grade for ISP 205L is separate from your grade for ISP 205 lecture. It is based on the lab answers that are handed in at the end of each lab. Your lowest lab score will be dropped. Their will be NO makeup labs permitted. If you DO miss a lab, this is the one which will be dropped with no penalty. If you miss MORE than one lab, then you will receive a 0.0 for each lab missed beyond the one which is dropped penalty free, Missed labs are very costly in terms of your final grade: each missed lab drops the final grade by about 0.5.
Updated: 1999.01.19 (Tuesday) 13:48:29 EST
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