This computer visualization activity is designed to help upper division undergraduate students visualize trajectories in attractive potentials.

Students use Maple or Mathematica to plot particular effective potentials and then use java orbits.jar to generate a polar plot of the corresponding orbit; students proceed to explore the parameter space of classical orbits.

The whole class wrap-up discussion addresses how changing the total energy, angular momentum, and the reduced mass of the system affects the shape of the resulting orbit.