Useful Links and Resources

The class website will be here:

http://www.phy.duke.edu/$\sim$rgb/Class/phy55.php

This will provide links to this document (the class syllabus and ruleset), the homework, and anything else you might need to look at as the course proceeds.

A free planetarium software tool for all platforms can be downloaded here:

http://www.stellarium.org/

This tool should be very useful to you as you try to visualize the sky or locate specific objects of interest. I urge you to download it and try it right away; next week assignments may involve using it.

I have a few CD's containing Starry Nights software, a very similar tool that is free to purchasers of the Universe textbook. Students are free to install this on any of their systems from my copies as long as they return the originals.

The regular semester class in Astronomy has a lovely set of online lecture notes in the form of power point slides. Our summer course will not follow exactly the same sequence as the regular class (we have to compress things a bit) but you may still find the online slides very useful as a summary and explanation of some of the things in the book. They are here:

http://www.cgtp.duke.edu/$\sim$plesser/phy55-spring10/lectures.htm

There may be times where you want to look over some results from introductory physics in some sort of a physics textbook (although most of the time my lectures will be self-contained). To keep you from having to rely on an outside text, you can consider looking here at my online lecture notes/text.

http://www.phy.duke.edu/$\sim$rgb/Class/intro_physics_1.php
http://www.phy.duke.edu/$\sim$rgb/Class/intro_physics_2.php