Grader

Xiang Li.

Online grades

Grades are posted into the web grades book. Make sure that posted grades coincide with their paper one.

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Week 1

• Lecture 01: Proves that the Earth orbits the Sun. Notes 01 pdf.
  • See Tycho Brahe criticism of Copernicus heliocentric model.
• Lecture 02: Did Greeks know distances to planets and the Moon? Notes 02 pdf.

Week 2

• Lecture 03: Parallax, telescopes, and diffraction limited optics. Notes 03 pdf.
• Lecture 04: Atmosphere problem, “beating” the diffraction limited optics: Michelson and Hanbury-Brown-Twiss experiments. Notes 04 pdf.
  • Crab nebula images taken with different type of telescopes
    • highter resolution
  • See also sky with Cromoscope X-ray, visible, infrared, etc
  • Link to 1921 popular astronomy article describing Michelson experiment
• Lecture 05: Kepler’s laws. Derivation of the 2nd law and its equivalent to the angular momentum conservation. Notes 05 pdf.

Week 3

• Lecture 06: Orbits shapes, 1st Kepler’s law derived. Notes 06 pdf.

• Lecture 07: 3rd Kepler’s law derived. Recipe to find the mass of an object in the sky. Notes 07 pdf.

• Lecture 08: Kepler’s laws and binary stars. Notes 08 pdf.

Week 4

• Lecture 09: Exoplanet search methods. Notes 11 pdf.
  • HARPS, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher with velocity precision 1 m/s.
  • see posters at astrocomb webpage related to radial velocity method
  • The Exoplanets data explorer
  • The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia
  • Direct imaging of exoplanet motion. Wikipedia article and animation
  • See Wikipedia exoplanet for directly observed images of exoplanets

• Lecture 10: Black body radiation derivation. Notes 09 pdf.

• Lecture 11: Black body radiation continued, luminosity, star apparent and absolute magnitude. Notes 10 pdf.

Week 5

• Lecture 12: Stars spectroscopy.
  • Hydrogen energy levels
  • Hydrogen spectrum
  • stellar spectral lines
  • stellar spectral lines

• Lecture 13: Spectral line disappearance mystery and Saha equation. Notes 13 pdf.

• Lecture 14: The Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram, mass-size-luminosity relationship. Notes 14 pdf.
  • Original 1914 paper by Russel (search for Figure 1)
  • H-R diagram for real stars
  • H-R with star classes
  • H-R diagram with star size isolines
  • A0 stars spectra comparison
  • more in Morgan-Keenan-Kellman atlas of stellar spectra

Week 6

• Midterm 01

• Lecture 15: Light absorption coefficient. Notes 15 pdf.

• Lecture 16: Light source function, star edge darkening, depth of probing as function of absorption. Notes 16 pdf.

• Lecture 17 (optional material): Voigt profile, density and linewidth curve of growth. Notes 17 pdf.

Week 7

• Lecture 18: Possible energy source for stars. Notes 18 pdf.

• Lecture 19: Requirements for nuclear fusion and hydrostatic equilibrium. Notes 19 pdf.

• Lecture 20: Photon and ideal gas pressure and its connection to temperature, quantum tunneling correction to required temperature for fusion. Notes 20 pdf.

Week 8 - spring break

Week 9

• Lecture 21: Gamow peak, fusion reactions rate. Notes 21 pdf.
  • Binding energy per nucleon
• Lecture 22: Star mass and its life time. Sun and magnetic field dynamics, mystery of hot corona.
  • Sun spots from Solar and heliospheric observatory (SOHO)
    • sun spot images today
    • sun spot images 05/07/2006
    • sun spot images 09/23/2011
    • sun spot images 09/24/2011
    • sun spot images 09/25/2011
    • movie taken at He I 10830 Å wavelength
    • Sun spot and granulation
  • Sun spot motion, NASA instagram

  • Sun spot different wavelength, NASA instagram

  • Sun spots number vs time
  • Sun spots latitude vs time
  • Solar movies
    • Solar movies long time observation at UV and others wavelength for comparison
    • Coronal mass ejection
  • Sun X-ray 1 year activity, composite image
  • Flares

  • Coronal rain

• Lecture 23: Cepheids - variable stars. Pressure as a restoring force. Notes 23 pdf.

Week 10

• Lecture 24: Variable stars continued. Driving mechanism, modes of oscillation, the Sun 5 minutes oscillation, gravity as restoring force. Notes 24 pdf.

• Lecture 25: Proto star formation. The Jeans criteria for cloud collapse. Notes 25 pdf.
  • Sky with Cromoscope X-ray, visible, infrared, etc.
  • Zoom in on the Orion nebula (sword)

• Lecture 26: Proto star formation. Cloud collapsing time. Notes 26 pdf.

Week 11

• Lecture 27: Spectral properties of clouds and nebulae. Clouds break down, jets, planets formation. Notes 27 pdf.
  • dark clouds
    • The Bok globule B68 and star reddening
    • the Horsehead nebula
    • one more picture of the Horsehead nebula
    • video which shows the Horsehead nebula in prospective
  • Emission nebulas
    • the Eagle nebula (example of emission nebula)
      • PhysicsPhest 2015 submisson by Jacob Gunnarson see page 28
      • well visible dark globules
      • composite image with X-ray shows hot young stars
      • Pillars of creation
    • IC 2944 a.k.a. Running Chicken Nebula
      • Globules within IC 2944 stellar nursery
  • reflection nebula
  • accretion disk and jets in HH30
  • jets and Herbig-Haro objects
  • Nursery of stars
  • proto planets disks prolyds
  • face on protoplanetary disks
    • TW Hydrae
      
    • HL Tauri
  • Planet imaging around beta Pictoris
    • a planet and the debris disk of betta Pictoris
    • The planer motion in betta Pictoris system
• Lecture 28: Fate of not too massive stars Notes 28 pdf.
  • Post main sequence evolution
    • Have a look at stars evolution tracks there
  • Late evolution track for a Sun like star. Taken from
  • Planetary Nebulae (remains of stars) gallery
    • Sun like star leftovers: PK 164
    • Helix Nebula
      • visible
      • composite
    • Cat’s eye nebula
      • image 1
      • image 2
    • Butterfly like nebulae
      • M2-9
      • Ant nebula
  • Star clusters
    • M13 in Hercules
    • The Pleiades Star Cluster M45
    • M3
  • HR diagram of M55 cluster
• Lecture 29: Fate of massive stars. Supernovae. Notes 29 pdf.
  • Supernova SN 1994D outshines galaxy NGC 4526
  • Supernovae spectra
  • Type II-L light curve sign of radioactive decay time scale and some pictures of Supernova 1987A
  • Supernova 1987A
    • recent image
    • visual and radio emission composite
    • evolution
    • educational video
  • Crab nebula remains of supernova seen in 1054 AD
    • visible
    • X-rays
    • multiple wavelength view
  • Gamma ray burst
    • simulation video

Week 12

• Midterm 02

• Lecture 30: Midterm discussion. White dwarfs and neutron stars. Degeneracy pressure. Notes 30 pdf.
  • Sirius B and Sirius A image
• Lecture 30b: Degeneracy pressure continued.
  • “Even if pulsars are natural, they are likely to be used as …”. An interesting view on pulsars. Take it with a grain of salt.

Week 13

• Lecture 31: Neutron stars and pulsars. Notes 31 pdf.

• Lecture 32: Exotic properties of compact massive object. Black holes. Notes 32 pdf.
  • stars motion movie near our galaxy center around potential black hole
  • scientific paper pdf “Measuring distance and properties of the Milky Way’s central super massive black hole with stellar orbits”.

• Lecture : LIGO detector and gravitational waves

Week 14

• Lecture 33: Equivalence principle as road to General relativity. Time dilation and light gravitational bending. Notes 33 pdf.

• Lecture 34: General relativity and Schwarzschild metric. Gravitational lensing. Notes 34 pdf.
  • Gravitational lensing samples and classical analog
    • sample 1
    • Smiling lens
    • GL and classical analog
  • Physics of interstellar black hole images movie and reality
  • Seeing Black Holes : from the Computer to the Telescope pdf
  • GL with and without Doppler shift
  • Gravitational waves
    • Timing Measurements of the Relativistic Binary Pulsar PSR B1913+16 indirect prove for gravitational waves
    • merging black holes GW sources movies
    • Detector LIGO
• Lecture 35: The Milky Way galaxy. Flat rotation curve. Notes 35 pdf.
  • The Milky Way views from the Earth
    • 1st
    • 2nd
    • The Milky way in infrared
    • The Milky Way top view
    • The Milky Way 9 billion pixels image zoomable

Week 15

• In class presentations
  • The heliospheric current sheet by Alexandra
  • Universe Inflation by Sam
  • Quark stars by Zach
• In class presentations
  • Why space travel is hard by Gus
  • Solar neutrino problem by Alicia
  • Cosmic rays and how they are detected by Ravn
• Lecture 36: Galaxies mass estimate. Galaxies interaction. Notes 36 pdf.
  • Galaxies classification
    • Hubble classification
      • tuning fork
      • A more detailed chart
      • Short gallery
        • edge on galaxy NGC 891
        • Spiral the Andromeda galaxy
        • Spiral the Andromeda galaxy
        • Spiral the Somrero hat galaxy
        • Spiral the Whirpool galaxy
        • Elliptical and spiral
        • The Fornax Cluster of Galaxies
    • Galaxy interaction
      • Magellanic steam
        • image
        • simulation
      • colliding galaxy NGC 520
        • The Sagittarius Dwarf Tidal Stream
        • The Cartwheel galaxy
      • Polar-ring galaxies
        • NGC 4650A
        • NGC 660
      • Tidal Tail galaxies
        • the Tadpole galaxy
        • The Antennae (NGC 4038 and NGC 4039) zoomed out, zoomed in
      • Star burst galaxy M82 or the Cigar galaxy
    • Early galaxies with the Hubble Ultra deep Field (a lot of odd shaped one)
      • general description
      • gallery
• Lecture 39: Finite size of universe. Big Bang. Cosmic background radiation. Notes 39 pdf.
  • Hubble paper with velocity to distance relationship estimate, see the equivalent of the Fig. 27.7 from the book. Looks like Hubble was factor of 10 off. Also, y-axis units are wrong, it should be km/s.
  • Measurements of Hubble constants v vs d plot as it shown on Fig.4 of Final Results from the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project to Measure the Hubble Constant same paper in arxiv see page 75 for the same plot.
  • CMB maps

  • Nobel prise 2011 The Accelerating Universe. Discrepancy between red-shift based and luminocity estimated distances pdf with data and explanation page containing this link.

  • log map of the universe
  • 2dF Galaxy redshift
    • conical slise visualization
    • more data
    • fly through movie

  • Large scale universe from simulation by illustris project

HW 01

• assigned reading Chapters 1 and 6.
• HW 01. Due day Wednesday Jan 24 at 1 pm.

HW 02

• assigned reading Chapters 6 and 2.
• HW 02. Due day Wednesday Jan 31 at 1 pm.

HW 03

• assigned reading Chapters 2 and 7.
• HW 03. Due day Wednesday Feb 07.

HW 04

• assigned reading Chapters 7 and 3.
• HW 04. Due day Wednesday Feb 14.

HW 05

• Get ready for the midterm. It is open book exam. We will cover everything except this week material.

HW 06

• assigned reading Chapters 5, 8 and 9.
• HW 06. Due day Wednesday Feb 28.

HW 07

• assigned reading Chapters 9.
• HW 07. Due day Wednesday March 16.

HW 08

• assigned reading Chapters 10 and 11.
• HW 08. Due day Wednesday March 21.

HW 09

• assigned reading Chapters 12 and 14.
• HW 09. Due day Wednesday March 28.

HW 10

• assigned reading Chapter 12.
• Get ready for the open book midterm on Monday 04/02. We will cover material up to the lecture 25 inclusively

HW 11

• assigned reading Chapters 13, 15, and 16.

• HW 11. Due day Wednesday April 11.

HW 12

• assigned reading Chapters 16 and 17.

• HW 12. Due day Wednesday April 18. Note that 5th problem is removed.

HW 13

• assigned reading Chapters 17 and 24.

• HW 13. Due day Wednesday April 25.

Additional presentation topics

Plan for 10-15 minutes overview style talks.

• UFO
• Active galactic nuclei
• The heliospheric current sheet -> Alexandra
• Why space travel is hard -> Gus
• Solar neutrino problem -> Alicia
• Universe Inflation -> Sam
• Cosmic rays and how they are detected -> Ravn
• A topic of your choice with approval of the instructor
• Quark stars -> Zach