The class meets Tu/Th 2:30-4pm in 219 Cahill
The TA duties will be shared by Antonija Oklopcic and Ben Montet
TA office hours will Thursdays at 4:15 or by arrangement with Ben or Antonija.
The current syllabus.
Grading will be based on a combination of homework sets (40%) a written final exam (30%) and a research project (30%) consisting of a written 5-10 page paper and a 10-minute presentation to your classmates during the last week of classes. The paper will be due on Friday, March 8 by 5:00 p.m., so please plan ahead to set aside time to work on it.
There will be 4-5 problem sets during the term, approximately one every two weeks. Assignments will be due Fridays at 5pm, turned into Steidel's mailbox in 249 Cahill, except by prior arrangement with the instructor and the TAs.
On the homeworks, you may discuss the problems with your classmates, but each student is expected to write her/his solutions independently.
There is no single text book that covers all of the topics for Ay124 at an appropriate level. Each week has associated with it some recommended reading in two textbooks: "Galactic Astronomy", by Binney and Merrifield (1998), and/or "Galactic Dynamics", by Binney and Tremaine (2nd edition, 2008). For some topics, links to papers or review articles will be provided for background reading.
Here are some links to papers of relevance to topics covered in class; reading or at least perusing them is recommended:
Last updated January 29, 2013