Richard Hammar teaches a 3 credit-hour introductory course on Astronomy each Spring semester at Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri USA. Both the video (showing Powerpoint slides) and audio formats are available below. Also available are public lectures Richard Hammar has presented on the intersection of astronomy and religion. Audios are downloadable; videos are viewable on-line only.
Astronomy Course Lectures, Videos:
Each lecture, with Powerpoint slides, is accessible here.
Click the "astronomy" link on the left side of the screen under Evangel University, and then click the lecture that you want to view.
Astronomy Course Lectures, Audio: |
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Astronomy Class - Lecture 1 - (36.78 MB)
A Grand Tour of the Heavens
Introduction; the "Modern Age of Astronomy"; www.seetheglory.com; why study astronomy; size and distance; general revelation; light years and parsecs; constellations; astrology; star names; angular measurement; the age of the universe.
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Near Earth Objects - (19.31 MB)
Richard Hammar speaking to the Springfield (Missouri) Astronomy Club on May 24, 2011, on the subject of Near Earth Objects.
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Faith Builders Class Presentation (10.64 MB)
Richard Hammar spoke at Dr. Nunnally's Faith Builders class at Central Assembly of God in Springfield, Missouri about finding a possible asteroid and the meaning of Romans 8:22 (the whole creation groaning) from an astronomical perspective. Presented on March 27, 2011.
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Tracking a spent Atlas 5 Centaur booster rocket
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This is a sequence of six images I took on March 23, 2011 of an unknown object moving through the constellation Virgo.
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I was not able to identify it with my planetarium software (TheSkyX Pro), so I turned to a physics professor friend who consulted with two NASA engineers to come up with an identification. It is satellite 28473, which is an Atlas 5 Centaur upper stage in a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) that placed into orbit the AMC-16 GEO satellite in December 2004. To attain geosynchronous (and also geostationary) Earth orbits, a spacecraft is first launched into an elliptical orbit with an apoapsis altitude in the neighborhood of 37,000 km. This is called a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO). The spacecraft then circularizes the orbit by turning parallel to the equator at apoapsis and firing its rocket engine. That engine is usually called an apogee motor. It is common to compare various launch vehicles' capabilities according to the amount of mass they can lift to GTO.
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UFOs: Fact Or Fiction? (27.02 MB)
Richard Hammar was joined by physicist Dr. Greg Ojakangas and Cessna Citation pilot Erin Buskirk for a discussion of UFOs at a meeting of the Springfield (Missouri) Astronomy Club on June 22, 2010. Erin began the presentation by describing a UFO that he saw while flying at 45,000' over Kansas on the evening of April 28, 2010. A recording made by Denver Air Traffic Control, obtained as a result of an FOIA request, was played. Several possible explanations of this, and other, UFO sightings were explored.
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Latest Findings and Their Relationship to the Bible (19.35 MB)
Richard Hammar is presenting his latest findings in astronomy and their relationship to the Bible. Presented to the Couples Fellowship, Central Assembly of God, on January 10 and February 14, 2010.
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The Star of Bethlehem - What Was It? (19.35 MB)
Richard Hammar speaking to the Springfield (Missouri) Astronomy Club in December 2008, on this subject.
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Astrophotography - (19.35 MB)
Richard Hammar speaking to the Springfield (Missouri) Astronomy Club in June 2007, on the subject of astrophotography
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Religion and Astronomy - (5.35 MB)
Richard Hammar is interviewed about his views on religion and science by a magazine editor
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Astronomy Class - Lecture 2 - (34.79 MB)
Light, Matter, and Energy
The nature of light; Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism; does light consist of waves or particles; the electromagnetic spectrum and its relevant to astronomy; estimating the temperature of stars; spectroscopy; the Bohr model of the atom; the Doppler effect.
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Astronomy Class - Lecture 3 - (34.03 MB)
The Structure of the Solar System; Telescopes
Geocentricism v. heliocentricism in the ancient world; Ptolemy; problems with geocentricism; Copernicus; Galileo's proofs of the Copernican heliocentric model (the phases of Venus, and the moons of Jupiter); the Church's response; different types of telescope; the largest telescopes; stellar magnitudes; Dawe's Limit (can we see the lunar landers from Earth?); interferometers; adaptive optics; orbiting telescopes; the Hubble Space Telescope.
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Astronomy Class - Lecture 4 - (33.24 MB)
Observing the Stars and Planets: The Clockwork Universe
Explaining lunar phases; definition of a "day"; calendars; lunar eclipses; solar eclipses (annular and total); historic eclipses; eclipses on other planets; the celestial sphere; the Aristotelian conception of "spheres"; Dante's Inferno; declination and right ascension; understanding the seasons; the ecliptic and solar plane; perihelion and aphelion.
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Astronomy Class - Lecture 5 - (12.29 MB)
Gravitation and Motion
Tycho Brahe; Johannes Kepler; Kepler's 3 Laws of Planetary Motion; Isaac Newton; the inverse square law; conservation of angular momentum.
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Astronomy Class - Lecture 6 - (13.31 MB)
The Terrestrial Planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and Their Moons
Physical characteristics; the origin and types of craters; the formation of the solar system; tides; the Van Allen Belt; aurora borealis; the greenhouse effect.
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Astronomy Class - Lecture 7 - (22.18 MB)
The Jovian Planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) and Their Moons.
Physical characteristics of the Jovian planets and their moons; NASA missions to the Jovian planets; Jupiter's Great Red Spot; the four "Galilean satellites"; Saturn's rings; Titan; the discovery of Uranus and Neptune.
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Astronomy Class - Lecture 8 - (25.25 MB)
Pluto, comets, and space debris.
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Astronomy Class - Lecture 9 - (15.55 MB)
Our Star: The Sun
the Sun's basic structure; sunspots and other solar activity; the Sun and the General Theory of Relativity; relativistic time dilation based on gravity and velocity under the Special Theory of Relativity.
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Astronomy Class - Lecture 10 - (24.63 MB)
Stars: Distant Suns
colors, temperature, and spectra of stars; measuring the distance to the stars; the Stefan-Boltzmann law; the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram; proper motion, binary and multiple stars; variable stars; the mass-luminosity relationship; star clusters.
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Astronomy Class - Lecture 11 - (18.94 MB)
How Stars Shine
Star formation; the amount of energy stars produce; the source of a star's energy; Einstein's principle of mass-energy equivalence; proton-proton nuclear fusion; abundance of the elements; solar neutrinos
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Astronomy Class - Lecture 12 - (24.35 MB)
The Death of Stars
The fate of stars of low, medium, and high mass stars; proton-proton fusion; triple alpha fusion; white dwarf stars; Chandrasekhar's Limit; electron degeneracy; the Pauli exclusionary principle; planetary nebulae; neutron stars; neutron degeneracy; supernovae; pulsars
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Astronomy Class - Lecture 13 - (40.12 MB)
The Milky Way
The "Milky Way" defined; Hershel's stellar census; the "Great Debate"; characteristic of the Milky Way; Shapley's measurement of the distance to globular clusters; the spiral density wave theory; Keplerian rotational curves in spiral galaxies and the discovery of dark matter; the mass of the Milky Way; center of the galaxy.
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See The Glory 
Near Earth Objects
Tracking a spent Atlas 5 Centaur booster rocket