UH Astronomy Courses Home Page


HST image of Mars

Hubble Space Telescope image of the Syrtis Major region on Mars, taken during the 1995 opposition of Mars. Image credits: Space Telescope Science Institute, (University of Toledo), and S. Lee (University of Colorado).



Administrative Material

UH Department of Physics Home Page.

Dr. Pinsky's Home Page. Includes Syllabi, viewgraph transcriptions, and sample exams for Dr. Pinsky's ph1305 and ph1306 classes.

Dr. Andersen's Home Page. Includes links to pages specific to Dr. Andersen's ph1305 and ph1306 classes.


General Interest Links

The web site to accompany the text book we our currently using at UH, Astronomy Today . Includes animations and online quizzes for each chapter.

Nick Strobel, who teaches astronomy at Bakersfield College, has produced a set of astronomy course notes, that he has placed online. These notes are extensive enough to be used as a second textbook for our astronomy courses at UH.

If you are interested in amateur astronomy in the Houston area, the place to go is the Houston Astronomical Society. At their website, you can find out about their scheduled meetings, that take place at UH. If you are interested in buying a telescope or getting involved in amateur astronomy in other ways, the members of the HAS are the people to see!

Astronomy Picture of the Day.

ASTRONOMY Magazine's site includes notes on current celestial events and other events of astronomical interest, along with information for people who are interested in getting started in amateur astronomy (includes a nice guide to buying your first telescope).

SKY Online - Sky Publishing Corporation. The company that publishes Sky & Telescope also has a web site, with a set of resources similar to those at the Astronomy magazine site, so if you find the Astronomy magazine site interesting, check this site out too.

Keep track of what is happening at NASA Today .

See the latest results from the Hubble Space Telescope, and access many of Hubble's prettiest pictures from the last fifteen years at HubbleSite.


Useful Tools

The following sites are useful places to get information useful in doing hw assignments, etc.

An online Periodic Table of the Elements, Web Elements.

An online Unit converter, unitsconverter.net.


Course Specific Resources

Sets of resources specifically selected or created to accompany the intro astronomy courses at UH. These resources may be accessed in either of the 2 following ways.

Course Outlines

Outlines of the major topics presented in the 2 courses, in the order that they are normally presented. Web resources are sorted into two categories: Web Sites and Exercises. Web Sites are normally links to external sites that give more information on the topics covered in lecture. Exercises are actual activities you can perform to help you master the material.

Physics 1305 (Solar System Astronomy) Outline.

Physics 1306 (Stellar and Galactic Astronomy) Outl306 (Stellar and Galactic Astronomy) Outline.

Course Web Pages

The course web pages for Physics 1305 and 1306 give much of the same information as the outline pages, but with a more narrative approach, and some cool images to boot.

Web page for Physics 1305 (Solar System Astronomy) .

Web page for Physics 1306 (Stellar and Galactic Astronomy) .


Send Page maintainer email: vandersen@uh.edu