See http://zingale.github.io/astro_animations/
Various animations (and some figures) used for teaching introductory astronomy concepts.
Python codes are used to generate static images which are then animated as a movie. Both the movies and the python codes are present here.
Note: many of these animations were quickly put together before a lecture and don't necessarily use the more elegant coding or libraries. These will be refined during semesters when I am teaching introductory astronomy.
Many of the animations are also up on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5D1C3702F5D1E571
anim_solvers: support routines for the animations (e.g. a class
that understands a solar system and how to integrate the planet
orbits
binary_exoplanets: various animations illustrating binary star
orbits and concepts of exoplanets (radial velocities, transits).
CFD: some simple animations that show ideas in computational fluid
dynamics.
ellipses: simple animations that illustrate the properties of
ellipses.
galaxies: animations related to galaxies.
mechanics: animations showing the dynamics of orbits.
radiation_thermodynamics: simple animations showing blackbody
curves and thermodynamics concepts.
radioactive_decay: an illustration of the random process of
radioactive decay.
scripts: support scripts, including a simple wrapper for mencoder to
string PNGs into a movie
solar_system_motion: lots of animations showing the basics of
Kepler's laws, the Moon's orbit and phases, sidereal vs. synodic
periods, ...
stars: figures related to stellar astrophysics.
waves: animations related to wave motion.
Many of the routines use the solver in anim_solvers to do the
integration. This directory needs to be in your PYTHONPATH for the
scripts to execute.
You will need to have numpy, matplotlib, and the python-basemap
packages installed for the scripts to run.