| COURSE DESCRIPTION | This course is intended to give astronomy majors a taste of modern topics of astronomical research. The typical format is to have a guest lecture by a different faculty member or research scientist each week. These lectures will cover a variety of topics. Students are invited to suggest topics for discussion. |
| PREREQUISITE: | None |
| INSTRUCTOR: | Professor Gregory Shields |
| Office: | RLM 15.224 |
| Phone: | 471-1402 |
| E-mail: | shields@astro.as.utexas.edu |
| Office Hours: | W 4:00 — 5:00 p.m. or by appointment |
| Web page: | http://bluebump.as.utexas.edu/shields.html |
| GRADING: | Course is pass/fail. Grade will be based on attendance and class participation. |
| REQUIRED TEXT: | None |
| STAR PARTIES: | Every Wednesday evening, if the weather is clear, there will be telescopes set up on the roof of RLM Hall by the 16-inch telescope dome. These sessions will start about one-half hour after sunset. Graduate students will be available to show you astronomical sights and answer questions. A film or lecture may precede some sessions. There is also a 9-inch telescope on Painter Hall that is open to UT students on Friday evenings and to the general public on Saturday evenings. You can use the 9-inch telescope if you are checked out on it. McDonald Observatory, in west Texas has star parties Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday nights. The public is invited to look through the 107-inch telescope one evening a month. Information on this and other programs of the McDonald Observatory Public Information Office can be obtained on the World Wide Web at StarDate Online http://pio.as.utexas.edu (phone 471-5285). |
| ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR: | Professor Shields was born in Los Angeles, California and grew up in Nebraska and Kansas. He earned a B.S. in Physics from Stanford University in 1968 and a Ph.D. in Astronomy at Caltech in 1973. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard, he joined the UT faculty in 1974. He now holds the title of The Jane and Roland Blumberg Centennial Professor in Astronomy, and served as Chairman of the Department of Astronomy from 1990 to 1994. He has taught both graduate and undergraduate courses throughout his career at UT. His research interests include theoretical studies of ionized nebulae in galaxies and the nature of quasars. He has published numerous research papers and several popular articles in various areas of astronomy. |