Astronomy 162:
Introduction to Stars, Galaxies, & the Universe
Prof. Richard Pogge, MTWThF 9:30

Copyright Statement

All of the written material and some of the graphics (static images and animations) on these pages are copyrighted by Richard W. Pogge unless otherwise noted, and may not be reproduced without written permission.

Educational or non-profit organizations wishing to reproduce or provide links to any part of these pages must contact Richard Pogge (pogge@astronomy.ohio-state.edu) in writing. Please see the Usage Guidelines below for specific information.

Usage Guidelines

These web pages are intended primarily for use by Ohio State University students enrolled in Astronomy 162 during Winter Quarter 2006 (and previous quarters when I've taught this course). To facilitate using these notes as part of their course work, students formally enrolled in this section are granted permission to make single copies of the online notes in unaltered form for exclusive personal use only, provided that all copyright notices and citations of images and text sources remain intact. "Personal Use", however, does not extend to additional reproduction, alteration, distribution, or resale of these notes in any form to anybody. Your use of these web pages implies that you agree with and will respect these conditions of use.

All other interested persons who are not enrolled in this course at The Ohio State University are welcome to browse these pages, provided that they observe the following usage restrictions:

Educators, educational organizations, or registered non-profit organizations may link to these pages from their websites, provided they contact the authors, Richard Pogge (pogge@astronomy.ohio-state.edu), so that I have a record of who is using this material outside of The Ohio State University. This information provides important feedback on the usefulness of the pages, and helps document their use to justify continued use of University resources to host them.
You may not reproduce, distribute, or resell any of the materials on these pages in any form, nor may you charge others to gain access to these pages. In particular, you are specifically prohibited from including any of the written or image material, in whole or in part, in course note or lecture note packages compiled with the intention of reselling them to students enrolled in this or related courses at this or other educational institutions. This includes providing copies of these notes, in whole or in part, to electronic note-taking services.
Persons wishing to translate these pages into other languages should first seek written permission at the email address above, and the translation should be accompanied by a link to the original English-language versions.
Citations of factual material in these pages should be to the original sources. Please contact the author of these pages for information on the correct citation of particular materials.

A Brief Note About Copyrights

The precise relationship between current Copyright Laws and publically accessible electronic documents on a world-wide Internet is a lively topic of ongoing discussion and debate. Copyrights are an essential protection for teachers and students alike, as they play a fundamental role in helping to preserve the integrity of our intellectual activities (writing, images, etc.) by protecting our creative works from commercial exploitation by others. I take the issue of copyrights very seriously in the production of these web pages.

If you notice any inappropriately used or incorrectly cited text or images, please contact me so that I can either seek the proper use permissions or delete them from these pages (providing substitutions where possible).

Text Sources

I have made a good faith effort to be very careful about not including copyrighted text (other than my own) in these pages, except where I have sought specific permission from the original authors. I would appreciate help correcting any erroneous citations to primary sources you might spot in these pages.

Images

Images are essential to teaching astronomy, and present a range of copyright issues in the context of the Internet. Since copyright law with regards to electronic graphics is still being developed, I have little guidance except common sense. As such, I use primarily public domain images on these pages, taking care to correctly cite the original sources, and have sought permission for other images (e.g., I have an agreement with the Anglo-Australian Observatory for use of some of their copyrighted images on these pages).

Some of the images and graphics displayed during lectures are copyrighted material not available in the public domain. While use of these images in lecture is permitted under the heading of "Fair Use", posting these same images to the Web is another matter altogether. I am seeking permission from the original sources to post some of the graphics on these pages, but not all persons have granted permission. For example, the publishers of the textbook allow me to scan a very limited number of graphics from the book for display in lecture (taking the place of their plastic overheads), but they have not granted permission to post them to the web. This can be somewhat inconvenient for the student, as a number of the images and graphics used in lecture are not available online and so the notes are sometimes incomplete in that sense, but this is unavoidable.

Animations

An exciting feature of electronic presentation is the ability to set some images into motion. In astronomy we often deal with dynamic phenomena: rotation, orbital motion, explosions, tidal encounters & collisions, etc., and static pictures do not convey the concepts as clearly as animations. We are beginning to create our own animations for these classes, and are putting them onto the web pages for the students to view (and play with) after class to help cement the ideas. All OSU-created animations are copyrighted and subject to the same restrictions noted above.

Some of the animations shown in class were created by others. In these cases, I have put in links to the original webpages from which I got them, or am seeking permission from the creators to make local copies available to try to help with the download time for my students. In all cases, these local copies are accompanied by links to the original sources, and you should always consult with the creators to seek permission to use them.

Audio Recordings

During Winter Quarter 2006 I experimented with making audio recordings of my lectures available for download. These take the form of MP3 audio files recorded using a pocket digital voice recorder and served on this website either directly or via an RSS feed (aka "Podcasting").

All of these recordings are copyrighted, and while you may download them for personal listening, you may not distribute them in any way, or make them available to others. If other people are intersted in listening to these lecture, please direct them to the Lecture Audio webpage.

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Updated: 2006 January 12 [rwp]