Astronomical Observations and Techniques
Practice Questions
Course Introduction
This course offers a comprehensive introduction to the observational methods and technical skills fundamental to modern astronomy. Students will explore the design and function of telescopes, detectors, and instrumentation used in both ground-based and space-based observatories. Emphasis is placed on the practical aspects of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting astronomical data, including photometry, spectroscopy, and imaging techniques. The course also covers observational planning, calibration procedures, and error analysis, equipping students with the knowledge required to conduct independent observations and contribute to ongoing astronomical research.
Recommended Textbook
Foundations of Astronomy 13th Edition by Michael A. Seeds
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1488 Verified Questions
1488 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: The Scale of the Cosmos
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Sample Questions
Q1) Using the cosmic calendar,where the Big Bang happened January 1,in what month did the Milky Way form?
A)January
B)March
C)August
D)December
Answer: B
Q2) What does a typical galaxy like our Milky Way galaxy contain?
A)primarily planets
B)gas and dust only
C)stars, planets, gas, and dust
D)a single star and planets
Answer: C
Q3) If the distance to the nearest star is 4.2 light years,what can we conclude about the star?
A)The star is 4.2 million AU away.
B)The star's light takes 4.2 years to reach us.
C)The star must have formed 4.2 billion years ago.
D)The star must be very young.
Answer: B
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Chapter 2: User's Guide to the Sky
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Sample Questions
Q1) Refer to Table 2-1.Which star in the table would be invisible to the unaided eye of an observer on Earth?
A)? Dra
B)? Cet
C)Nim
D) ? CMa
Answer: C
Q2) On the vernal equinox (March 21),where is the Sun on the celestial sphere?
A)23.5° north of the celestial equator
B)23.5° south of the celestial equator
C)on the celestial equator and moving north with respect to the equator
D)on the celestial equator and moving south with respect to the equator
Answer: C
Q3) What causes the precession of the Earth's rotation axis?
A)the force of gravity from the Sun and Moon on the Earth's equatorial bulge
B)the force of gravity from the Sun and Jupiter on the Earth-Moon system
C)the magnetic field of the Earth
D)the impacts of asteroids
Answer: A
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Chapter 3: The Origin of Modern Astronomy
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Sample Questions
Q1) Many classical Greek astronomers believed the Earth could not move because they detected no parallax.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) Which of the following statements reflects beliefs that were almost universally held in pre-Copernican astronomy?
A)The planets travelled in elliptical orbits around the Earth.
B)The planets travelled in elliptical orbits around the Sun.
C)The Sun was at the centre of the universe.
D)The Earth was at the centre of the universe.
Answer: D
Q3) What are Newton's three laws of motion?
Answer: Answer not provided.
Q4) In what circumstances is retrograde motion observable?
A)It is observable for planets located between the Earth and the Sun.
B)It is observable for planets more distant from the Sun than the Earth
C)It is only observable for the Moon.
D)It is observable for all planets.
Answer: B
5
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Chapter 4: Astronomical Telescopes and Instruments
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Sample Questions
Q1) What type of primary is found in a reflecting telescope?
A)prism
B)mirror
C)lens
D)diffraction grating
Q2) Why were telescopes with very large,thin mirrors NOT built 50 years ago?
Q3) Which of the following has a few million light-sensitive diodes in an array typically measuring about one centimetre square?
A)charge-coupled device
B)spectrograph
C)photographic plate
D)grating
Q4) X-rays easily penetrate the Earth's atmosphere and reach the ground from space.
A)True
B)False
Q5) What is a similarity between radio and optical telescopes?
A)Both are usually located on mountain tops.
B)Both can observe from the Earth's surface.
C)Both are usually made as refracting telescopes.
D)Both can detect radiation with charge-coupled devices.
6
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Chapter 5: Sun Light and Sun Atoms
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Sample Questions
Q1) Solar prominences have twisted and looped shapes because of the solar magnetic field.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which of the following can be determined from the spectrum of a star,without additional information?
A)distance
B)core temperature
C)rotational velocity
D)velocity across the sky
Q3) A plot of the continuous spectra of four different stars is shown in the figure.Based on these spectra,which of the stars has the lowest temperature?
A)Star A
B)Star B
C)Star C
D)Star D
Q4) ____________________ is a measure of the amount of energy due to the motion of the particles in a gas,liquid,or solid.
Q5) What is the Babcock model?
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Chapter 6: The Family of Stars
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Sample Questions
Q1) When we see a binary system producing eclipses,we know that the orbit is nearly edge-on.
A)True
B)False
Q2) What does a spectroscopic binary show periodic variations in?
A)radial velocity
B)proper motion
C)brightness
D)spectral type
Q3) Absorption lines in the spectra of supergiant stars are broader than the same spectral lines in main-sequence stars of the same spectral type.
A)True
B)False
Q4) For what kinds of stars are the masses of stars in the H-R diagram "orderly"? For what kinds of stars are they "disorderly"? In other words,could you guess the mass of a star from its location (luminosity,temperature)on the H-R diagram?
Q5) Which are the most common stars,massive stars or low-mass stars (relative to the Sun)? High luminosity or low luminosity (relative to the Sun)?
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Chapter 7: The Structure and Formation of Stars
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Sample Questions
Q1) Absorption lines due to the interstellar medium indicate that some components of the interstellar medium are cold and of a very low density.How do they show this?
A)The lines are blue shifted.
B)The lines are red shifted.
C)The lines are extremely broad.
D)The lines are extremely narrow.
Q2) How does a gas cloud become hot enough to ignite nuclear reactions?
Q3) What would a H-R diagram of a young star cluster show?
A)high mass stars that have not reached the main sequence yet
B)low mass stars that have not reached the main sequence yet
C)mainly giant stars, since most stars have left the main sequence
D)no stars, since none have reached the main sequence yet
Q4) The lower edge of the main-sequence band represents the location in the H-R diagram at which stars begin their lives as main-sequence stars.What is it called?
A)the zero-age main sequence
B)the birth line
C)the Coulomb barrier
D)the evolutionary track
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Chapter 8: The Deaths of Stars
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the source of the energy radiated by a white dwarf?
A)the proton-proton chain
B)the CNO cycle
C)gravitational contraction after becoming a white dwarf
D)gravitational contraction during the white dwarf formation phase
Q2) Synchrotron radiation occurs when high speed electrons move through a magnetic field.
A)True
B)False
Q3) What does the Chandrasekhar-Landau limit tell us?
A)Accretion disks can grow hot through friction.
B)Neutron stars of more than 3 solar masses are not stable.
C)White dwarfs more massive than 1.4 solar masses are not stable.
D)Stars with a mass less than 0.5 solar masses will not go through helium flash.
Q4) The ____________________ of a black hole is the radius from the black hole at which the escape velocity is equal to the speed of light.
Q5) Helium fusion does not begin until the star has entered the giant region of the H-R diagram.
A)True
B)False
Page 10
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Chapter 9: The Milky Way Galaxy
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Sample Questions
Q1) What type of radiation do we detect from the energy source at the centre of our galaxy?
A)X-rays
B)visible light
C)ultraviolet light
D)gamma rays
Q2) How did Harlow Shapley determine where the centre of the galaxy lies?
A)He plotted the distribution of open clusters.
B)He plotted the distribution of globular clusters.
C)He made star counts in every direction of the galactic disk.
D)He measured the amount of dust obscuration in every direction of the galactic disk.
Q3) ____________________ are groups of 100,000 to 1,000,000 population II stars firmly bound together by gravity.
Q4) Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of the stars of the disk component of our galaxy?
A)young stars
B)randomly inclined orbits
C)circular orbits
D)higher metal abundance
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Chapter 10: Galaxies
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Sample Questions
Q1) How does the study of quasars reveal information about the history of the universe?
A)Quasars are very distant, so we see them as they were in the past.
B)Quasars contain stars of all ages.
C)Quasars typically act as host galaxies for gravitational lensing.
D)Quasars generate their energy in very small volumes of space.
Q2) What kind of galaxies contain large clouds of gas and dust,and both young and old stars,but have no obvious spiral arms or nucleus?
A)irregular
B)lenticular
C)elliptical
D)barred spiral
Q3) ____________________ clusters of galaxies contain closely spaced galaxies,and often contain giant elliptical galaxies and a hot intergalactic medium.
Q4) What do tidal tails,multiple nuclei,and shells of stars have in common?
A)All are found in clusters of galaxies.
B)All are found near active galactic nuclei.
C)All are characteristics of spiral galaxies.
D)All are related to galaxy interactions.
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Chapter 11: Cosmology in the 21st Century
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following applies if the universe is closed?
A)The universe will expand forever.
B)The universe has a centre.
C)The universe has an edge.
D)The universe has a high density.
Q2) What elements would you measure the abundance of,if you wanted to infer the amount of normal ("baryonic")matter in the early universe?
A)lithium and boron
B)carbon and oxygen
C)lithium and deuterium
D)hydrogen and helium
Q3) Under what conditions will space-time be flat?
A)if the universe is expanding
B)if the universe is finite
C)if the average density of the universe is equal to the critical density
D)if the universe is homogeneous and isotropic
Q4) Upon what false assumption is Olbers' paradox based?
Q5) Describe how we know that the expansion rate of the universe is currently accelerating.
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Q6) What evidence do we have that the universe is expanding?
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Chapter 12: The Origin of the Solar System
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the main improvement of the Kepler spacecraft compared to other planet-finding methods?
A)Kepler can detect signs of life on planets.
B)Kepler can detect planets outside the Milky Way.
C)Kepler can detect many more planets.
D)Kepler can detect much smaller planets.
Q2) How does the solar nebula theory explain the present densities and chemical compositions of the planets?
Q3) Which one of the following is a characteristic of terrestrial planets?
A)high average density
B)orbits outside the asteroid belt
C)large diameters
D)many satellites
Q4) What observation made of other stars seems to suggest that the solar nebula hypothesis is correct?
A)Stars are found to exist more often in binaries than by themselves.
B)Protostars are seen to radiate much of their light at infrared wavelengths.
C)Nearby stars tend to be low mass red dwarfs.
D)Young stars are found to have hot disks that surround them.
Q5) How does the solar nebula theory account for the presence of comets?
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Chapter 13: Comparative Planetology of the Terrestrial
Planets
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is evidence that the Earth went through a process of differentiation?
A)It rotates slowly.
B)Its magnetic field has changed over time.
C)Its average density is higher than the density of the crust.
D)It has a surface that is 75% water.
Q2) ____________________ is the gas molecule most responsible for the greenhouse effect on both Venus and Earth.
Q3) Which of the following are the youngest parts of the Earth's crust?
A)the bottom layer of the Grand Canyon
B)the continental margins
C)the pre-Cambrian shield
D)the mid-ocean rises
Q4) What is believed to be the origin of the moons of Mars?
A)They formed when a body the size of the Earth impacted with Mars early in its history.
B)They are escaped moons of Saturn.
C)They formed from material ejected from Olympus Mons and other large volcanoes on Mars.
D)They are captured asteroids.
Page 15
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Chapter 14: Comparative Planetology of the Jovian Planets
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Sample Questions
Q1) Why is Saturn oblate in shape?
A)The gravitational force of its moons flattens the planet.
B)The rapid rotation of the planet flattens it.
C)It formed that way originally and has no way to reshape itself.
D)Its magnetic field pulls the polar regions toward the planet's centre.
Q2) What is Cassini's division in Saturn's rings?
A)a location in the rings where the particle composition changes due to outgassing
B)a clump of ring particles produced by gravitational interaction with the moon Mimas
C)a separation between rings orbiting in different planes
D)a gap produced by gravitational interaction with the moon Mimas
Q3) What is the Roche limit?
A)the distance from the Sun within which a planet cannot retain an atmosphere
B)the minimum mass of an object in the solar system that would be classified as a planet
C)the maximum separation distance between the Sun and a given planet
D)the distance from a planet within which a satellite cannot hold itself together
Q4) How do we know that the interior of Jupiter is a liquid metallic material?
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Chapter 15: Life on Other Worlds
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Sample Questions
Q1) All of the terms in the Drake equation are estimates.In the next decade,which of these estimates is likely to improve the most because of better observational data?
A)number of stars in the Milky Way
B)fraction of stars with planets
C)number of planets per star in the habitable zone
D)fraction of planets where life evolves to intelligence
Q2) Even if societies on stars in distant galaxies survive at a technological level for only 10 years,that is long enough to establish two-way communication with them.
A)True
B)False
Q3) What are believed to have been the best places for life to have formed on Earth?
A)near the south pole, on the ice
B)on the continent of Africa, in the areas with no water
C)in liquid water, probably in the oceans or pools of water
D)in volcanoes, where lots of energy was available
Q4) The oldest easily identifiable fossils appear in sedimentary rocks that formed 3.4 billion years ago during the ____________________ period.
Q5) The Miller experiment succeeded in creating ____________________.
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