1. Astro 3: Solar System Astronomy *Rick Nolthenius Call me “Rick”. *Office: 706a 479-6506 *email: rinolthe@cabrillo.edurinolthe@cabrillo.edu *visit my extremely excellent website!excellent website!

2. Textbook – “The Cosmic Perspective – The Solar System” – Bennett, Donahue, Schneider, and Voit, 5 th, 6 th, or 7 th Edition The bookstore has the 7 th, but you can find older and much cheaper editions on Amazon, etc. We have several copies on reserve in the library

3. Grading 6 mult. choice quizzes based on text. - ~10 questions each - closed notes 3 video quizzes, after seeing ~50min video program. Take notes and use them for your mult. choice quiz, a dozen or two questions each Final Exam: 50 mult. choice questions. You may have a single 8x10 sheet of paper crammed with all the notes you can muster! Lowest score dropped. Will drop 2 quizzes but ONLY if both are no-show’s Because…No make-ups Extra Credit possibilities Buy 10 green narrow scantron sheets from the book store. $3. Cheap! Keep them in your notebook along with a pencil.

4. What will we Do in Astro 3? We start with my own “Chapter 0” on the principles of clear thinking and scientific method Then the sky, how the rotating earth and orbiting earth make the sky show the patterns it does. Seasons, eclipses very briefly in the planetarium, then some history. Then to boldly go, on to the planets, comets, killer asteroids! And Onward, to Oort Clouds comets wayy out there, and to other solar systems and to the question of Life in our Galaxy I’ll stress the observational facts and how we use scientific inference to arrive at ideas, and to test them to home in on our current theories of the solar system. Exams will stress getting a picture of processes and the ‘why’ behind what we see, not much on memorized factoids.