PSci 21 Elementary Astronomy

James "The Amazing" Randi's $1 Million Paranormal Challenge: Randi is a professional magician who is offering a $1 million prize for anyone who can demonstrate genuine paranormal phenomena, or psychic powers. An earlier prize for $10,000 went unclaimed for 25 years.

Handout on (Some of) The Most Influential Scientific Findings of All Time

Gravity and the Motions of the Planets:

The Motions of the Planets.

Telescopes:

Refractors vs. reflectors, and optics

Why CCDs are nearly perfect astronomical detectors

Other detectors: the eye and photography

An interesting example of Adaptive Optics

The Solar System:

AstroWeb: A web page for finding other astronomy/space science web pages. In other words, an Internet search engine specifically for astronomy/space science.

Planetary Fact Sheets, by the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC)

The Nine Planets: A Multimedia Tour of the Solar System

The big list of current, planned, and past missions, maintained by NASA's

Office of Space Science.

Entertaining but useless Gazeteer of Planetary Nomenclature, by the International Astronomical Union.

Status reports for Ulysses, Voyager, and other planetary spacecraft, from JPL

Extrasolar planets:

Extrasolar Planet Search

The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia

The Moon:

Clementine (DSPSE) spacecraft: Water Found on the Moon

Lunar Prospector Homepage: Lunar Polar Ice Confirmed

So, you want to walk on the Moon?

Lunar Data Support Idea that Collision Split Earth, Moon

Solar and Lunar Eclipses:

Eclipse Home Page,

From that page, here's a map of Total Solar Eclipses in North America, 2001 - 2050

I went to Germany for the 1999 August 11 solar eclipse. My old college roommate, Bill Kramer, led the expedition. Bill now owns and runs a computer firm, and is an avid amateur astronomer.

Probably the image most like what the eclipse really looked like was taken by Jonathan Kern and processed by Wendy Carlos. Another is from Fred Espenak, who runs the Eclipse Home Page at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Here's my own quick description of what really is indescribable. The weather was not good for the stress level. Here's a wide angle shot of the hole in the clouds we observed through, with Venus at bottom left (about 7 o'clock) and Mercury at top right (about 2 o'clock). The sky was much darker than this time exposure shows.

Mars:

JPL's Mars Exploration page

NSSDC's nearly exhaustive Mars page

NSSDC's Mars Chronology. Have a look especially at the bottom of the list.

What NASA Johnson Space Center has so far on Human Exploration of Mars

Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct Manned Mars Mission (design)

Mercury:

Approved MESSENGER orbiter, part of the Discovery program

The Outer Solar System:

Project Galileo

Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) proposed mission to Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

Cassini: Mission to Saturn