Secrets of the Ancient Astronomers

From this page, students may get class "news" updates, various handouts in Adobe PDF format, and news.


News:

The Internet discussion board is HERE.

By now, you have all chosen a project. The list of possibilities may still be found here.

The project schedule is available HERE.


Handouts:

Course syllabus

Project suggestions (continuously updated until Long Weekend)



Trigonometry review

First assignment handout, due THURS., Oct. 2 (note that the gnomon question, #5, is not in this web version)

Second assignment handout, due THURS., Oct. 16
Hint for Question 3

Third assignment handout, due THURS., Oct. 30 (due to a bug in my PDF program, some of the Greek letters do not appear in this web version)

Fourth assignment handout, due MON., Nov. 17

Fifth assignment handout, due THURS., Dec. 4 (missing the Law of Sines description on the back)

Sixth assignment handout, due MON., Dec. 15


Software:

Cybersky home page

Starry Night home page

List of other astronomy programs


Links:

Williams College Chapin Library --- astronomy books exhibit

The myth of the flat earth

A good place to begin web searches in the history of astronomy

Google's cache of the Flat Earth Society FAQ

A brass armillary sphere, available for $65
(warning: it doesn't say in the description that the sphere rotates, although its latitude setting is adjustable)

A good site on the astrolabe and its history

Chaucer's treatise on the astrolabe (in Old English)

A nice web applet to generate astrolabes (contains three variants) --- thanks, Adam!

Three sites for conversion to Julian dates:
Numerical Recipes site
US Naval Obervatory site
CSG Network site

An article on the sundial Glen helped to build last summer



Last modified: Dec. 3, 2003 / Glen Van Brummelen

Office: Dickinson 213. Phone numbers: (w) 440-4467; (h) 440-8142.