Course no. 1810.

Lectures produced in 2007.

GMD: videodisc.

pt. 1. Observing the heavens: Celestial sights for everyone. ; Disc 1. A grand tour of the cosmos. (ca. 32 min.) ; The rainbow connection. (ca. 30 min.) ; Sunrise, sunset. (ca. 32 min.) ; Bright objects in the night sky. (ca. 31 min.) ; Fainter phenomena in the night sky. (ca. 31 min.) ; Our sky through binoculars and telescopes. (ca. 30 min.) -- Disc 2. The celestial sphere. (ca. 33 min.) ; The reason for the seasons. (ca. 31 min.) ; Lunar phases and eerie lunar eclipses. (ca. 31 min.) ; Glorious total solar eclipses. (ca. 31 min.) ; More eclipse tales. (ca. 31 min.) ; Early studies of the solar system. (ca. 29 min.).

pt. 2. Disc 3. The geocentric universe. (ca. 30 min.) ; Galileo and the Copernican revolution. (ca. 31 min.) ; Refinements to the heliocentric model. (ca. 31 min.) ; On the shoulders of giants. (ca. 32 min.) ; Surveying space and time. (ca. 31 min.) ; Scale models of the universe. (ca. 31 min.) -- Disc 4. Observing the heavens : Basic concepts and tools. Light: the supreme informant. (ca. 31 min.) ; The wave-particle duality of light. (ca. 30 min.) ; The colors of stars. (ca. 31 min.) ; The fingerprints of atoms. (ca. 31 min.) ; Modern telescopes. (ca. 31 min.) ; A better set of eyes. (ca. 31 min.).

pt. 3. Contents of the Universe : Our solar system. Disc 5. Our sun, the nearest star. (ca. 30 min.) ; The Earth, third rock from the sun. (ca. 32 min.) ; Our moon, Earth's nearest neighbor. (ca. 31 min.) ; Mercury and Venus. (ca. 33 min.) ; Of Mars and martians. (ca. 31 min.) ; Jupiter and its amazing moons. (ca. 31 min.) -- Disc 6. Magnificent Saturn. (ca. 30 min.) ; Uranus and Neptune, the small giants. (ca. 30 min.) ; Pluto and its cousins. (ca. 30 min.) ; Asteroids and dwarf planets. (ca. 33 min.) ; Comets: gorgeous pimordial snowballs. (ca. 31 min.) ; Catastrophic collisons. (ca. 31 min.).

pt. 4. Disc 7. The formation of planetary systems. (ca. 32 min.) ; Contents of the universe : Other planetary systems. The quest for other planetary systems. (ca. 31 min.) ; Extra-solar planets galore! (ca. 31 min.) ; Life beyond the Earth. (ca. 31 min.) ; The search for extraterrestrials. (ca. 31 min.) ; Special relativity and interstellar travel. (ca. 31 min.) -- Disc 8. Contents of the universe : Stars and their lives. Stars: distant suns. (ca. 32 min.) ; The intrinsic brightnesses of stars. (ca. 30 min.) ; The diverse sizes of stars. (ca. 31 min.) ; Binary stars and stellar masses. (ca. 31 min.) ; Star clusters, ages, and remote distances. (ca. 31 min.) ; How stars shine: nature's nuclear reactors. (ca. 30 min.).

pt. 5. Disc 9. Solar neutrinos: probes of the sun's core. (ca. 31 min.) ; Brown dwarfs and free-floating planets. (ca. 31 min.) ; Our sun's briliant future. (ca. 31 min.) ; White dwarfs and nova eruptions. (ca. 31 min.) ; Exploding stars: celestial fireworks. (ca. 31 min.) ; White dwarf supernovae: stealing to explode. (ca. 31 min.) -- Disc 10. Contents of the universe: Stellar explosions and black holes. Core-collapse supernovae: gravity wins. (ca. 31 min.) ; The brightest supernova in nearly 400 years. (ca. 31 min.) ; The corpses of massive stars. (ca. 31 min.) ; Einstein's general theory of relativity. (ca. 32 min.) ; Warping of space and time. (ca. 31 min.) ; Black holes: abandon hope, ye who enter. (ca. 32 min.).

pt. 6. Disc 11. The quest for black holes. (ca. 31 min.) ; Imagining the journey to a black hole. (ca. 31 min.) ; Wormholes: gateways to other universes? (ca. 32 min.) ; Quantum physics and black-hole evaporation. (ca. 31 min.) ; Enigmatic gamma-ray bursts. (ca. 31 min.) ; Birth cries of black holes. (ca. 31 min.) -- Disc 12. Contents of the universe : The Milky Way and other galaxies. Our home: the Milky Way Galaxy. (ca. 30 min.) ; Structure of the Milky Way Galaxy. (ca. 30 min.) ; Other galaxies: "Island universes". (ca. 30 min.) ; The dark side of matter. (ca. 31 min.) ; Cosmology: The universe as a whole. Cosmic expansion and distant galaxies. Cosmology: the really big picture. (ca. 32 min.) ; Expansion of the universe and the big bang. (ca. 32 min.).

pt. 7. Disc 13. Searching for distant galaxies. (ca. 31 min.) ; The evolution of galaxies. (ca. 31 min.) ; Active galaxies and quasars. (ca. 32 min.) ; Cosmic powerhouses of the distant past. (ca. 31; min.) ; Supermassive black holes. (ca. 32 min.) ; Feeding the monster. (ca. 32 min.) -- Disc 14. Cosmology: The universe as a whole. The structure and evolution of the universe. The paradox of the dark night sky. (ca. 32 min.) ; The age of the universe. (ca. 31 min.) ; When geometry is destiny. (ca. 31 min.) ; The mass density of the universe. (ca. 32 min.) ; Einstein's biggest blunder? (ca. 31 min.) ; The afterglow of the big bang. (ca. 31 min.).

pt. 8. Disc 15. Ripples in the cosmic background radiation. (ca. 31 min.) ; The stuff of the cosmos. (ca. 32 min.) ; Dark energy: quantum fluctuations? (ca. 31 min.) ; Dark energy: quintessence? (ca. 32 min.) ; Grand unification & theories of everything. (ca. 32 min.) ; Searching for hidden dimensions. (ca. 32 min.) -- Disc 16. Cosmology: The universe as a whole. The birth of the cosmos, and other frontiers. The shape, size, and fate of the universe. (ca. 32 min.) ; In the beginning. (ca. 32 min.) ; The inflationary universe. (ca. 32 min.) ; The ultimate free lunch? (ca. 32 min.) ; A universe of universes. (ca. 32 min.) ; Reflections on life and the cosmos. (ca. 30 min.).

For home use or face-to-face teaching.

Camera, Jim Allen, Alexis Doty, Lonnie Anderson, Jack Dierken, Jared Bourgeouis, Will Savage.

Lecturer, Alex Filippenko.

College students and adults.

DVD.

In English.