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Caveat Emptor? I finish with two warnings, one applicable to all faculty members here
and one specific to me.
First, in this department you deal with professional astronomers.
The good part is that you get very close to current research,
and that can be very exciting.
The bad part is that we tend to travel a lot (most obviously to
observatories in remote and exotic locales), and I will need to
excuse myself from class a couple of times during the semester.
At present I have a trip scheduled for October 13-18 (missing class
October 15, 17), and one November 5-7 (missing class November 7).
However, all classes will meet.
A substitute lecturer will pinch-hit for me in class on those occasions.
Second, I am currently Letters Editor of The Astrophysical Journal.
This means that inevitably I am pulled in many different
teaching/service/research
directions simultaneously, and frankly I am very busy.
However, this should not become your problem!
I expect you to work in this class, and you should expect no
less of me.
Do not feel the slightest hesitation in pushing me to make time for
you outside of class; politely in the beginning, but more firmly
if I do not respond.
Your interaction in this course can only aid your understanding.
Preliminary Course Outline (subject to revision)
- Introduction and Vital Observational Statistics of Stars: positions,
distances, magnitudes, etc.
- The Basic Quantities of Radiation: intensity, flux, blackbodies
- Interpreting Stellar Magnitudes: luminosity & effective temperature;
stellar photometry & color indices; effects of the Earth's atmosphere
- The Heart of Observational Stellar Physics: spectroscopy;
stellar spectral types;
excitation & ionization equilibria; the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
- Further Extractions from Spectroscopy: radial velocity & proper motion;
interstellar extinction; binary stars & the measurement of stellar masses;
the Mass-Luminosity relation
- Variable Stars: Cepheids, RR Lyraes, Long-Period Variables; white
dwarf pulsators; close binary systems (mass-exchange & contact binaries;
cataclysmic variables; novae; etc.)
- Star Clusters: young clusters/pre-MS evolution; Main Sequence turnoffs
& cluster ages; globular clusters; etc.
- (if time permits) Stellar Atmospheres: radiative transfer; basic
principles of model atmospheres; spectral lines & abundance determinations.
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