[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]
[Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences]
[12s22 Hands-On Astronomy]
Handout 0, 2002 January 7
12s22 Staff List & Course Information, Part 1 of 2
UPDATED FOR 2002 IAP
[
OVERVIEW |
SECTION ASSIGNMENT RITUAL |
MEETING TIMES and Time Management |
CLASSROOM |
GRADING |
TEXTBOOK |
EXPECTED STUDENT PREPARATION |
PHOTO SUPPLIES
]
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Section Instructor: Andy Rivkin,
54-418, 452-2304,
asrivkin@mit.edu
This seminar covers
background for and techniques of
visual observing
and imaging
with a small telescope.
As the physics and math involved are elementary,
12s22 does not make the brain-bashing problem-set demands
characteristic of many other MIT courses.
However, you will need to invest a fair amount of time and care in your
work for the course, and the time investment tends to collide
with some of your prime homework-time (or whatever else you may want to do
during IAP).
Clear nights in Cambridge are rare enough that we
must take full advantage of each one:
sometimes we're
extremely fortunate, with a section
getting 5 to 7 clear nights during the term.
Sometimes we're extremely UNfortunate,
and a section gets
only 2 or 1 (or less?) useful nights.
As any given class night may be an `observing night',
you must
be prepared to devote several hours each class night to 12s23 during the
three
weeks it runs.
12s22 uses six 8-inch reflecting telescopes;
you'll be paired off and work two persons per scope.
We set up the telescopes on campus
until you've had enough experience
to be able to take full advantage of a darker locale.
Sometime around
mid- to late-January we'll move our observing
to Wallace Observatory in Westford, MA
(less interfering lighting) as the weather and interest warrants.
- Limited enrollment.
Note that
the structure of 12s22 makes taking it as a ``listener''
(audit) a mostly pointless idea,
and can complicate things for those on credit.
Normally ``listener'' status isn't permitted for this seminar,
but please see
Andy
if you feel you've a good
reason to audit 12s22 rather than take it for credit.
-
Classes will begin meeting evenings starting 7 January 2002.
If for some reason you are unable to attend the first meeting of your
assigned section,
you must contact your instructor ahead-of-time to arrange
to attend another
section's first class, just for the first week.
Otherwise,
we'll assume you're dropping 12s22 and will offer your slot
to the next person waiting to join that section.
Since we're cramming a semester's worth of work into IAP, the class will
meet Monday through Thursday at 7:00 pm for each of the first
three weeks of IAP (that is, the weeks of 7, 14, and 21 January). The 21
January class will not meet due to Martin Luther King's birthday.
A session on campus will end no later than 10:00pm.
On clear nights at Wallace (later part of the term),
plan being dropped off back
on campus no later than 12:30am.
If necessary, we can shift the meeting time of the section with
unanimous consent to be able to better accomodate people's schedules.
With the early sunset, an earlier meeting time could possibly be worked
out, though we don't want to impinge on dinner time...
IF THIS SEEMS TOO EXTREME A TIME COMMITMENT
PLEASE RECONSIDER NOW WHETHER THIS SEMINAR
IS REALLY THE RIGHT ONE FOR YOU!
Keep in mind also
that when we get to imaging
you'll be spending some non-class time
processing your images.
Each section of 12s22
begins officially at 5 minutes past the
published start time (as is traditional for all classes at MIT);
it's to your advantage to be on time for class,
to obviate loss of observing time or
having to make it up by ending later than usual.
(`Missing the van to Wallace' is a very
demoralizing way of
losing a clear night while at the same time
chalking up an unintended unexcused absence...)
If you know ahead-of-time you have a time-conflict
on some particular class night which might delay your arrival
5-10 minutes, please contact your instructor beforehand
so that he/she knows to wait.
Your pass/fail grade
will be determined using two criteria:
- ATTENDANCE:
As 12s22 is a hands-on `techniques and experience'-type course,
we state the following for the record:
in order to pass 12.409,
you must attend your section each night.
Actually,
this will probably be the most challenging part of this seminar - arraying
your other commitments to handle one night a week of observing.
IF THIS SEEMS TOO EXTREME A TIME COMMITMENT,
PLEASE RECONSIDER NOW WHETHER THIS SEMINAR
IS REALLY THE RIGHT ONE FOR YOU!
-
OBSERVING NOTEBOOK:
You'll need to
have some sort of laboratory notebook
to use for recording observations
and writing calculations.
In 12s22, it will be inspected by your instructor
as a major criterion for evaluating your performance in the course.
Please get yourself an observing notebook before your
first 12s22 class.
An 8.5- by 11-inch spiral-bound notebook of about 50 pages
has always been more than enough for an entire term
(even assuming piles of clear nights),
so that's what we recommend.
Some observers prefer a notebook with lined or graph-paper
pages (to help in reproducing angles and making sketches)
though plain paper should be adequate for our purposes.
You need a notebook in which the pages are bound together,
since looseleaf notebooks
tend to be clumsy if you're out working on a
windy rooftop.
(Plus, fishing white
looseleaf sheets out of a white snowdrift
in the dark a few stories down is kind of a pain.)
Spiral
notebooks are particularly well-suited for 12s22 work:
you can conveniently fold the cover all the way back,
and can include your handouts using looseleaf rings.
(Hint: avoid black covers; they're impossible to locate in the dark.)
Please arrange to have this notebook be exclusively for your 12s22
work, so that its being collected for inspection
won't
deprive you of your notes
for any other classes
you may accidentally be taking.
Please be certain also to bring your notebook to ALL class sessions
(including the first one).
Our laboratory classroom is Room 37-562.
To get there, first be aware that the Bldg. 37 ground-level doors
may actually be locked at 6pm as advertised: if so,
you'll need to come inside through
the second floor of 35 or the third floor of 39.
Once you manage to get in,
take one of Building 37's two elevators to the 5th floor.
Turn left as soon as you exit the elevator;
the first door past the elevators on the same side of the corridor
is marked as being Rooms 37-552, 556, & 562.
Behind the door is a small corridor with 4 doors off it;
37-562 is at the far end, directly in front of you.
Stay on path; avoid land mines.
Most of the ``material'' (such as it is) for 12s22 is distributed
as a set of handouts.
However, if you don't yet know the
major constellations and bright stars
you should also purchase The Stars by H. A. Rey,
which is available at the Coop as a 12s22 ``text''.
Even if you already know your way around the sky,
but learned to picture the constellations by a method
other than Rey's superior method of showing them,
you might want to get yourself the book
since we'll many times describe locations of stars
by where they fit into Rey's
pictures (e.g. ``Perseus' left armpit'').
Expected student preparation for an evening of observing
includes
coming to class on-time,
awake,
fed, and
warmly dressed (see next paragraph).
A few words about ``Evening Attire for the Sensible Observer'':
- The reality
of observing
(or more properly, one reality, for there are several)
is that you can get cold,
all the way from late autumn through early spring.
In particular, rooftops are almost always breezy
(therefore cold) and Westford, MA is an ``outlying area''
(therefore cold).
(Lest
you think summer observing is completely trouble-free,
forget not Mr. Mosquito.)
- When observing you'll want at least one EXTRA layer
over whatever you usually find effective for a given air temperature;
I recommend dressing as if the air temperature where you'll be observing
were an extra 15 to 20 degrees F lower than
what the thermometer reads.
This extra is necessary because for the most part
you're NOT MOVING AROUND
enough to generate any body heat that way.
Here's what I wear for wintertime observing
(since it's really un-cool for
the instructor to get cold...):
- Long underwear (recommend two sets if T below 25 degrees F)
- Heavy trousers; heavy shirt (wise to bring wool sweater as well)
- Wool socks over my ordinary socks
- hiking boots (mine aren't specifically insulated
but they're made out of thick stuff;
my wool socks do the insulating.) Insulated boots are
good also; sneakers are usually inadequate and
are NOT recommended.
- wool neckwarmer or scarf
- wool hat
(Having some hat is CRUCIAL, since most
of your body heat is lost through your head.)
- warm gloves (I use a thin polypropylene glove
underneath my bulkier well-insulated Thinsulate(TM) gloves,
so when I need to remove the bulky ones for short
periods of time, to write something or make a fine adjustment,
I still have some covering over my hands.)
-
Like so many other things in life,
observing is significantly less fun than it could be
if you're underdressed for the occasion.
So, if you err, arrange to do so on the side of preparedness:
if you bring too many warm clothes you can always decide you
need not wear all of them,
but if you bring too few,
you lose, in a most uncomfortable way.
12s22 |
Last modified 2002 Jan 7
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