M. P. Birla Planetarium

Free Evening Course in Astronomy

    SYLLABUS 

·       A Brief  history of Astronomy

·       The night sky  through the four seasons of the year – spotting of the bright stars and constellations.

·       Celestial sphere; System of co-ordinates - Horizontal, equatorial and ecliptic.

·       The Solar system; the distribution of planets, their orbits, inferior and superior planets, conjunction, opposition, retrograde motion of a planet.

·       Time; Civil time, sidereal time – mean sun, equation of time

·       The Earth : Rotation – data of radius, volume, mass, gravity, revolution round the sun and seasons – Kepler’s Law of planetary motion.

·       The moon : rotation on axis and revolution round the earth. – plane of moon’s orbit with reference to ecliptic.

·       Refraction, parallax, aberration, Telescopes, refractor, reflector

·       Spectroscopy : solar spectrum, emission, spectra – Doppler effect.

·       Eclipses: Lunar and solar, different types, frequencies, duration, tides.

·       The Sun : mass, size, temperature conditions- photosphere, corona, prominences, flares and spots and faculae.

·       Physics of the Sun and stars, sources of energy, the origin of the solar system

·       Stellar Classification - HR Diagram

·       Life & Death of stars– Nebulae, interstellar gas, dust clouds, white dwarfs, supernova, pulsars and stellar Black Holes

·       Galaxies, Hubble diagram, radio galaxies, active galactic nuclei – Theories & Observations

·       Peculiar extragalactic phenomena – gravitational lensing, gamma ray bursts, superluminal motion, Cosmic Background Radiation.

·       Universe : theories of origin – expansion – age of the universe – formation of light and heavy elements – future of the universe.

·       Life forms in the Universe. Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence