ASTR 1303- Stellar Astronomy

Required Topics

Topics marked with * may also be covered in ASTR 1304

I.  Fundamentals

  1. Celestial coordinate system *

  2. Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravity

  3. Light and Matter *

    1. Wave-particle duality of light

    2. Electromagnetic spectrum

    3. Luminosity and Brightness

    4. Kirchoff's Laws

    5. The Bohr Model of the atom

    6. Astronomical Spectroscopy

  4. Telescopes *

II.  Properties of Stars

  1. The Sun *

  2. Nuclear fusion

  3. Magnitude system

  4. Spectral types

  5. The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram

  6. Binary stars and stellar mass

  7. Star clusters

            III.  Process of stellar evolution

  1. High-mass vs. low-mass stars

  2. Stellar remnants

    1. white dwarfs

    2. novae and supernovae

    3. neutron stars and pulsars

    4. black holes

            IV.  Galaxies

  1. Structure of the Milky Way

  2. Types of galaxies

  3. Theories of galaxy formation

  4. Quasars and active galaxies

            V.  Cosmology

  1. The expansion of the universe

  2. The Big Bang Theory