Subsections
[Cr:2, Lc:2, Tt:0, Lb:0]
- Celestial coordinates, time measurement, rising, setting, meridian
crossing of sources. circumpolar objects.
- Quantifying fluxes, magnitudes, absolute magnitudes, colour.
Extinction, estimation of extinction.
- Distance measurements: parallax, moving cluster method, HR-Diagram
method, Cepheid variables, Supernovae of type Ia.
- Two body systems, orbits, the effect of radiation pressure on orbits
and cometary tails. Using observations of binary stars to infer
physical properties of stars. Discovering exo-planets. Röche
limit. Lagrange points.
- Stars: observed properties of stars, main sequence. Central
pressure and temperature in stars. Nuclear reactions and generation
of energy. Relation between mass, radius and luminosity of main
sequence stars. Life time on main sequence, variation with mass of
stars. Evolution of stars beyond the main sequence.
- Stellar remnants: white dwarfs, Chandrasekhar limit, Neutron stars,
Black holes.
- Gravitational waves and other probes of compact binaries.
- Inter-stellar medium (ISM), Jeans length. phases of ISM, estimation
using pressure equilibrium. photo-ionization equilibrium.
- Galaxies. Properties of galaxies, morphological classification.
Structure and dynamics of spiral galaxies. Oort's constants,
rotation curves. Structure and dynamics of elliptical galaxies. Groups
and Clusters of galaxies.
- Expansion of the universe, Hubble's law. Newtonian cosmology.
Estimating cosmological parameters from observations. Brief overview
of thermal and expansion history of the universe.
- H. Karttunen, P. Kröger, H. Oja, M. Poutanen and K. J. Donner,
Fundamental Astronomy, 5th edition, Springer (2007).
- A. E. Roy and D. Clarke, Astronomy: Principles and Practice,
4th edition, CRC Press (2003).
- Bradley W. Carroll and Dale A. Ostlie, Introduction to Modern
Astrophysics, IInd Edition, Addison Wesley (2006)
