ASTRONOMY REVIEW FOR EXAM 1

In addition to reading the corresponding chapters specified in the syllabus, the classroom notes, the web lectures, the following are important points that must be known:

1. Where is your zenith and nadir?

2. Where is the celestial equator and celestial poles in relation to the Earth’s equator and poles?

3. What is the celestial sphere and why does it turn around us westwardly every day?

4. Where in the sky would you see stars that are not turning or just barely turning in the course of a night?

5. In the Northern Hemisphere, how is the altitude of the North Star related to the latitude of the observer?

6. What star is currently closest to the North Celestial Pole?

7. Where on Earth do stars always circle the zenith (and never rise or set)?

8. From horizon to opposite horizon, the sky takes up how much angular distance?

9. What is the Sun's apparent path around the celestial sphere during the course of the year called?

10. What is the strip of the sky within which the Sun, the Moon, and the bright planets appear to move in the course of a year called?

11. What is a constellation and how many do we have? How many constellations are there around the ecliptic? What is an asterism?

12. Which ancient Greek thinker suggested the geocentric view?

13. What is retrograde motion?

14. What is precession?

15. What is heliocentric view and who introduced it first in the ancient times? Who rediscovered it in the 15th century AD?

16. Who was the scientist who first devised experimental tests to demonstrate the validity of the heliocentric model of the solar system?

17. Comment on the relation between the position of the Sun on the ecliptic and the location and time of sunrise.

18. What is latitude?

19. Where on Earth do stars appear to rise vertically up from the horizon?

20. Considering that the Earth rotates eastward, the celestial sphere appears to rotate westward. a) True   b) False

21. The Sun's ecliptic is an eastward motion of the Sun on the sky relatively to the stars, resulting from the Earth's eastward revolution around the Sun. a) True b) False