Instructors may vary from the schedule according to their own judgment for various reasons:

1. For example, they may want to go off semester schedule to prevent crowding on the roof with three sections all doing observations on one night.

2. They may just prefer another ordering.

3. The weather may prevent doing an observing lab.

   In some observing labs, the observing component is small (e.g., Lab 6: Planets) and the instructor may decide to omit the observing part altogether if weather is bad.

4. The weather may thrown them off semester schedule in an earlier week.

Whatever lab the instructors are going to do they should review it. The review might be hasty if they decide against an observing lab at the last minute because of weather.

Instructors sometimes have their own labs written up that they prefer to the standard new set prepared by yours truly.

You can do one or two of your own if you feel they are educationally suitable. But most labs should be from the basic set prepared by yours truly---which instructors can vary a bit according to their own judgment.

Note absolutely positively, you cannot do any of the old Diane labs.

Those are copyrighted by Kendall-Hunt and we are no longer using their book.

If you have a version of a Diane lab all in your own words, that is OK. But you cannot use printouts of the Diane labs---even though we have them all.

1. Some comments on the last lab reports or the last quiz.

2. An announcement of upcoming labs or the lab final.

3. A brief intro to the lab of the night. The new post-Diane labs are designed to need no or only a brief intro.

   However, since they are still under construction, more than a brief intro may be needed in some cases.

If occasionally you fall behind, that is not a problem.

But you shouldn't get more than two weeks behind.

Certainly on the last lab and the lab final night, you should have the marks available to show the students.

The lab course requires 6 quizzes during the semester: the lowest one is dropped. Typically, these will consist of about 10 questions and last 10 minutes. The questions are often chosen to be multiple choice.

You can give more more quizzes, but only the top 5 count.

Yours truly likes to give a quiz at the start of almost every lab. I omit the quiz if there has to be a last minute change in the lab exercise due to weather or if it is the course evaluation period. The students know the quiz is coming and preparing for the quiz is part of their preparation.

Traditionally, the instructors make up their own quizzes and you can still do that if you like.

However, yours truly has prepared quizzes and keys for all the labs and those can be used by all. They are accessible from the each lab's own page: see Introductory Astronomy Laboratory Exercises.

The updatable Las Vegas sky map below should help.

A convenient site is NWS weather.

Of course, weather can differ from forecasts and visual inspection of the sky on the night of the lab must be done too.

Whether the weather is too bad for a particuclar observing lab depends a bit on the lab itself.

Patchy cloud cover may be OK for some labs. It depends on how patchy.

Lab 4: The Moon can usually be done if the cloud cover is hazy. The telescopes can shoot through the clouds.

As mentioned above, in some observing labs, the observing component is small (e.g., Lab 6: Planets) and the instructor may decide to omit the observing part altogether if weather is bad.

We never do observing labs if there is going to be rain or even a chance of thunderstorm.

Usually, there will be more than one instructor, and so there should be lots of help setting and taking down the telescopes.

You could make out a seating plan every night as you go around talking to students. This could serve as your attendance record and help you know all their names.

Keeping a record of attendance is required.

There are good reasons for it to be so:

1. Ensuring that handed in reports came from an attending student.
2. Knowing if a student was actually present if a lab goes missing.
3. Dealing with questions from the registrar about student attendance. Students in certain circumstances are required to attend. The grade roster require attendance records for students getting an F.

Quiz preparations and lab preparations are usually going to be the same thing.

Sometimes you may wish to give it later for some reason.

If some students want to work in smaller groups and there are sufficient computer and telescopes setups then that is fine.

Occasionally, there is lone-wolf who wants to work alone. This is usually discouraged since its lonely and some tasks are hard to do alone. But if they really want to and there is space, OK.

Students should also have flashlights or something similar. They will need this for the whole course. Cell phone lights are adequate, but not ideal.

NO laser pointers which are not useful as flashlights and are dangerous.

Yours truly has a NEBO U.S. Army Strong HP-35 35 Lumens LED Cap-Light Flashlight 6 Modes #5588. I guess it's called a cap-light because you can stick it on your helmet: it has a magnet and a clip. It's tiny and can be clipped on a shirt. I bought mine for $16 at the Big 5 Sporting Goods Store at 2797 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89109.

1. You have to sequence through the modes to get red light.
2. The battery does run low after a semester. New batteries can be bought at, e.g., Target.
3. Actually, these cap-lights don't hold together very well. If they are dropped on the ground, the battery tends to fall out---and then fall between the tiles on the roof. You can secure the battery holder with a bit of tape.

The iPads are in the storage room.

Hardly anyone ever uses them. The labs arn't designed to use them and yours truly doesn't know much about them.