ASP2062: Introduction to astrophysics

30% - Computer laboratories (Mix of lab and tutorials)
60% - Exam (Must pass to pass the unit)
10% - Mid semester test (Week 7)
There are no assignments in this subject

Lectures
I attended almost all of the lectures for this subject and made sure to catch up on any I missed. I'd highly recommend attending the lectures as they helped a lot with the tutorial assessment and the lectures will generally get to know you since the attendance was around 15 - 20 students.
I enjoyed all of the lectures for this subject but here is just a few comments:
Duncan Galloway - Always had very well made slides that where easy to follow along with in and out of class. He would sometimes use the projector to do practice questions but always inserted these into the notes before uploading which was very helpful if you didn't want to listen to the recording.
Daniel Price - Came with a prepared book of notes and used the electronic tablet to write them out. This sounds boring but it wasn't.... I promise. He goes into great depth of the concepts to ensure you understand them and gives ample examples to concepts. He also enjoys asking a lot of questions in order to have a discussion and creates animations (on the bus) to show in class.
Alina Donea - Covers the first topic, if you've done any astronomy this part will be a breeze. Just make sure to know Kepler's laws of by heart! She is also a great lecture but be warned that she does have an accent, it is nothing to strong or annoying but I did attend all her lectures so I'm not sure how it sounds on recording.
Rosemary Mardling - Rosemary likes to use the projector and will upload her slides to moodle. My saving grace for Dynamics was that Rosemary handed out a bound book of notes (on first lecture) that covered everything and had examples with answers. It's not that she is a bad lecturer but she tends to waste time and recover things that we just did the last lecture.

Computer laboratories
Make up a large portion of the assessment at 30%, they are a generally an even mix of tutorials and prac work. The prac work is very simple, just have to use the Linux code they supply, plug it into Linux and answer questions. The tutorials are very helpful , can not stress enough to make sure you understand the answers to the questions and give them a good shot. They are perfect practice for the mid semester test.
Also forgot to mention that the work done in the 2 hrs isn't due till the start of the next weeks lab and the computer room is generally open to be used if you don't finish. This made it really easy to get the work done and written up well to get high marks.

Mid semester test
Only worth 10% but be warned that it can hurt and goes for approximately 40 minutes. The highest score from my year was a 24/34 (I think it was out of 34 but I could be wrong) and I managed a 21. Only 8 students in the whole cohort passed and with scaling to out of 25 still more than half the students still failed. I think this was due to low preparation levels and bad communication between lectures.
To prep for the test we where given the previous years test, the only problem was that this tests questions weren't relevant to most of our concepts and consisted of about 12 multi. choice and a few short answers. However when we sat our test it was about 6 pages long and each lecturer (for the content we had covered up to week 7) had supplied at least 5 questions each, only Daniel gave a mix of multi. choice and short answer where as the rest where all just short answer. Not surprised that many didn't finish it considering the amount of questions and there difficulty.
So to prepare for the test look at the derivations and practice questions in the lecture notes. These and some tutorial questions will make up the mid semester test.

Exam
Went for 3 hrs and is the only hurdle. The exam itself I found quite doable however it was quite long which I expected due to the amount of questions expected to be done in the 40 mid. semester test. The only structure in the exam was that each lecturer had their own section of questions for the exam. Which was generally 2 - 3 pages, some do a mix of multiple choice and short answer questions. But a lot of the exam was just doing derivations from lectures and questions similar to tutorials.
The best prep I can suggest is the same prep and the mid semester test. Re-do the tutorials and go over all derivations and practice questions in the lecture notes.

Final commentsI really did enjoy this unit and would highly recommend it. However be warned that it has changed structure this year so the lectures are still getting used to things and there won't be many (or none if they don't give you my years exam) exams that are relevant to the material. Remember to properly do tutorial questions and go over the derivations from the lectures and you should be fine!

Duncan Galloway - Takes Black holes and Stellar structure + Evolution
Daniel Price - Takes Star + Planet formation and Galaxies + Cosmology
Alina Donea - Introduction, the Universe and the Sun
Rosemary Mardling - Dynamics

Yes, a single one from a previous year which was really irrelevant since the course changed this year.

4.5 out of 5

Yes, with screen capture. However some of the lectures use the projector.

I believe it was an Introduction to Modern Astrophysics 2ed PNIE . I got a pirated version and still didn't use it (if you want it send me a message). It's not necessary at all as the lectures notes cover everything in great detail.

3 x 1hr lectures and a 2hr lab per week

2014 semester 2

HD 89

Labs and tutorials 30% Mid Semester Test 10% Exam 60%

Overall I found this unit pretty interesting. It essentially extends upon the topics covered in ASP1010 with more detailed mathematical models and computer simulations. Firstly, you'll be going into star and planet formation with Dr.Prentice. He makes these topics so interesting that you may just fall in love with astrophysics. Then Dr.Alina Donea takes over the unit and then you'll pretty much work through things you learned in ASP1010 and watch couple of videos on youtube. Dr.Daniel Price teaches Stars and also Cosmology part. You may get into some mathematical modelling here with 4-5 differential equations and some nuclear physics. Make sure you have a decent background in maths, preferably MTH2010...because you need to be able to derive these equations. Dr. Rosemary Mardling's part was pretty interesting but also heavily overloaded with differential equations. You'll be solving two body problem and derive the equation of an ellipse out of Newton's law...I must say I really appreciate Newton's law after seeing all those things. Only negative side of this unit was computer labs...You'll be having a linux and windows day...and you'll be having a bad day with linux if you have no experience at all. Make sure you learn basic codes! Some of the tutorial work was so tedious that you pretty much hand your work in the following week. Each lab/tutorial class is 3% so make sure you turn up...Mid Semester test was not that hard at all.

Dr.Andrew Prentice-Best lecturer at Monash. He has so much sense of humour. He is also a genius. One of the best jokes he made was when we were discussing a past exam question and the answer was ambiguous..He said "That's alright..we invent a different answer every year" . And he calls some of the symbols a turkey
Dr. Alina Donea-She is a good lecturer. Most of you may know her from ENG2091 I believe.
Dr. Daniel Price-Pretty decentDr. Rosemary Mardling-Most of you may know her from MTH2032

Yes, only two past exams available. Questions are pretty similar each year.

4/5

Yes, overhead/notepad notes

Not necessary if you are not considering astrophysics major

3x1 hour lectures per week, 1x2 hour problem solving class or computer lab

S2/2013

tba