Preview of UCF AST 3043, Practice of Historical Astronomy

AST 3043 is a new, 3-credit, all-online course to be offered for the first time in the Fall 2024 semester.

The course can help satisfy requirements for the Astronomy Specialization within the Physics B.S. degree since this is a 3000-level AST course that can be counted as one of the "upper division AST courses" or one of the "select courses at a 3000 level or higher, approved by the Physics Department." Always discuss your course selections with your academic advisor before assuming a course will satisfy a degree requirement!

The course can help satisfy requirements for the Astronomy Minor since this is a 3000-level AST course that can be counted as one of the "Restricted Electives".

• The basic description of the course is: "The study of analytical methods that led to our first understanding of our Solar System and Universe in the pre-telescopic and pre-modern eras."
• While the word 'historical' is in the name of the course, the intent is not for this course to be a narrative of astronomical history. This is most definitely a quantitative course where you will be doing astronomical analyses. The expectation is that the student will be able to use geometry, algebra, and trigonometry well enough to be able to address the course concepts.
  • This is why the pre-requisites are both AST 2002 and either PHY 2048 or PHY 2053.
  • There will be quantitative problem sets for you to do, as well as labs.
• The main textbooks will be as follows. They are all free to access electronically (though you may have to either (a) be on campus, (b) access the library through UCF'S VPN, or (c) login to your library account in order to see them).
  • Evans's The history and practice of ancient astronomy. The book is available online.
  • Magli's Archaeoastronomy: Introduction to the science of stars and stones. The book is available online.
  • Hearnshaw's The analysis of starlight: Two centuries of astronomical spectroscopy. The book is available online.
• There will be other reading materials made available through the Webcourses page. E.g., I'll provide links to publicly-accessible published papers.
• The goal is for students to not have to spend anything on reading material for this course. You may have to spend something small ($10 or $20) on materials for labs but you can always let me know if this will be problem.
• The ability to write code (in e.g. Python or MATLAB) can be helpful, but that is not a requirement for the course. All assignments that might need coding will be doable via spreadsheeting in (e.g.) Excel. If it comes to it, I can teach you all you would need to know in Excel to be able to do such assignments. Don't avoid the course because you're worried about your programming experience.
• Understanding concepts of the celestial sphere (from AST 2002) will be very helpful for this course. We will spend a week at the start of the semester refreshing your memory about some of that, but the more you remember about that the better.
• Right now I'm planning on several types of assessments with which you will be able to demonstrate proficiency with the material.
  • homework problem sets
  • small lab-type projects
  • discussions/quizzes
  • presentations

1. Pre-telescopic astronomy (antiquity to 1610 CE).
• Predict how the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars move in the sky.
• Demonstrate how ancient societies could have assessed and predicted the motion of these objects.
• Explain how to measure angles and time using technology from antiquity.
• Analyze your own measurements of star positions in the context of the historical record.
• Assess how the counting of days in a calendar relates to the accurate counting of years.
• Construct alignments with hypothetical buildings that would reveal important calendrical dates.
• Derive geometrical and trigonometric relationships that explain our views of the Moon and planets and of the layout of the Solar System.
2. Visual telescopic astronomy (1610 to approx. 1860 CE).
• Explain the basic optics and operation of early telescope designs.
• Summarize what properties of planets, stars, and nebulae can be discovered via eyepiece observations.
• Analyze data from the period that appear in primary sources of the time.
3. Photographic telescopic astronomy and early astrophysics (approx. 1860 to approx. 1950 CE).
• Explain the basic observational techniques required for 19th and 20th Century astronomical photography.
• Formulate the quantitative derivations of a few important astronomical discoveries from the early 20th Century, such as stellar variability, universal expansion, dark matter, etc.