We used two PC Windows shareware programs, a gravity simulator and a landing on the moon simulator, in class. You can download these by clicking on the highlighted names below. A dialog box should open allowing you to specify where to save the program. The file will then be transferred to your computer. Most of the following files have been compressed using pkzip. You will need to have this utility to unzip the files.
Gravity: This is the gravitational interactions program we used when thinking about Kepler's Laws. You will end up with a program called gravity1.exe, exactly 32,207 bytes long, on your computer's disk. Move it into its own subdirectory since it will create several files. Execute it by either double clicking on it in file manager, or just typing gravity1.exe from the DOS prompt. The program that does the simulations and several more files are then extracted. Execute gravity.exe to start the program, then use file/open to get one of the four scenarios that are included. The one called rogue.grv is the one where the passing star stripped the planets from the sun. Start the simulation with simulation/start and when you are finished stop it with simulation/stop. When you exit the program or open a new scenario the program will ask whether you want to save the changes to the file - say no since this would loose that scenario. The program has an editor which will allow you to create your own solar systems and put planets into any orbit you like.
The lunar lander simulator is a zip file that must be uncompressed using any unzip utility. This program runs OK under Windows 3.1, but not on my NT 4.0 system. It may work under Windows 95 if you disable any screen savers before starting it (thanks to Ben Cichanowicz for pointing this out.)
Meteor is an arcade-style moon landing program.
Apollo is a commercial quality shareware program that simulates flying an Apollo mission. Some of the features are disabled in this demonstration version. It opens with the famous quote from Kennedy's May 25 1961 address to Congress, and closes with a tribute to the crew of Apollo 1.
The 1960's Star Trek TV series inspired one of the very first computer games. Here is an updated version of it, that runs on today's PCs.
moons is a DOS program that shows phases of the moon for any time and date. moonris3 is a Windows program that will tell you the phase of the moon, and the times the moon and sun will rise and set, for any time, date, and location. It is a zip file and needs Vb40032.dll to run. The author's web site is http://WWW.iserv.net/~bsidell/moonrise.htm Moon Calculator is a dos program that shows where the moon is, and its phase.
The origin of the chemical elements is one of the biggest questions in modern astrophysics (most were made by nuclear processes inside stars). Here is the Periodic Table program that I use - it's actually fun to play with. The UK Chemistry Dept has people to work with molecules formed by these elements for a living.
Want to know what time it is? The U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. was built to find out. Here is a link to a shareware program called AtomTime that will sync up your computer's clock with the Naval Observatory clock.
The Astronomy Picture of the
Day shows a different picture every day - one of my favorite sites.
Space.com has lots of space flight and
astronomy related material, including information and downloads
The page has astronomy shareware
programs by John Walker, including Home Planet
Astronomy on-line is put together
by the European Association for Astronomy Education
The SEDS WWW Site has a large collection of
software and graphics.
eHobbies has lots of links to amateur
astronomy stuff
The OAK collection is a good
place to look for astronomy games and simulations.
Project CLEA is
an Astronomy education effort based at Gettysburg College. This has shareware astronomy
demonstrations and laboratory exercises.
The Astronomy
and Astrophysics educational resources maintained by the WWW has links to the best
sites on the Web.
The Astronomy Cafe has
interesting links to astronomy related activities.
The Students for the Exploration and Development of
Space maintains a broad set of links and lots of graphics.
Earth Station 1 has lots
of links to science fiction, astronomy, and space. One of its pages has lots of shareware and freeware for
Windows.
This French site has lots of Space
Movies, including science fiction and exploding rockets.
This page has images of nebulae.
Beer and coffee, the official drinks of
astronomers everywhere (with thanks to Sumner Starrfield for pointing out an egregious
oversight!). Did someone say Austrian
beer? How about home brewing your own? Guinness? Samuel
Adams? Real Beer? After all
that brew you might be a candidate for Pot Bellied Men
of America.
Want to know what time it is? The U.S. Naval Observatory in
Washington, D.C. was built to find out. Here is a link to a shareware program called
AtomTime that will sync up your
computer's clock with the Naval Observatory clock.
The Naval Observatory also has a page
giving sunrise and sunset, and the phases of the moon.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Kitt Peak Observatory, near Tucson
Arizona
NASA Ames Research Center
National Optical Astronomy Observatories
Goddard Space Flight Center
The on-line lab of Bill Nye the Science Guy
Sky Almanac for this
month, from Astronomy Magazine, describes current night sky events
The Constellations.
Another constellations
page
Phase of the Moon , an image of the
moon's current phase (or that for any specified date)
Calculator for Sun/Moon Rising and Setting
Times from USNO
The International Dark-Sky Association
Mount Wilson Observatory Online
Stargazer Map generates locations of stars, planets, and other objects of astronomical
interest for a given date and place.
Stars and Galaxies in 3D (VRML), by
Paul Houle and Harry Bowman
Solar System Live allows you
to view locations/motions of the planets around the sun based on given dates
Views of The Solar System is
an extensive set of pages on the planets, plus links to other astronomical topics
Earth Viewer allows you to
look at the (simulated) earth from any point, even from the sun or the moon
Satellite view of the earth's
full disk over a full year, allows you see the change in the sun's illumination of the
earth due to the earth's tilt, from NRL-Monterey (3.5 MB)
Pictures of Nebulae, by Bill
Arnett
The Nine Planets, by Bill Arnett
NASA Gallery of photographs, video,
and audio has lots of pretty pictures plus links to other sites with pretty pictures
Hubble Space Telescope Information, from
STScI
The Hydrogen Main Sequence Calculator,
by Martin Weinberg
Cosmology Tutorial by Ned
Wright
Frequently Asked Questions About
Being an Astronomer, from NOAO
Careers in Astronomy from the
AAS describes preparation for a career in astronomy and related fields
Star Child - A learning center
site for young astronomers, educational information directed towards children
Astronomy Information Leaflets,
a series of pamphlets on basic astronomical data from the Royal Greenwich Observatory
K-12 Curriculum
Material, a developing site of introductory level material from the Athena project on
the solar system, the sun, and (coming soon) the rest of the universe
A web astronomy course, solar
system and galactic.
Animated and informational tutorials on the topics of
Additional animated tutorials on Stars
and Galaxies
The state of the art on Searches for
Extrasolar Planets and the well-maintained Extrasolar Planet
Encyclopedia
Fun with Blackbody
Radiation in VRML, by Karen Strom
AstroWeb, an extensive database
of research-oriented links from the CDS