Astronomy 480

Nebulae Galaxies and Cosmology

Instructor: Caryl Gronwall

Office: 417B Davey, Office Hours: Monday 3:40 - 4:30 pm & Thursday 4 -- 5 p.m. or whenever you can find me!

TA: Jackson Norris jmn261@psu.edu

Office hours: Monday 1 - 2 pm & 4- 5 pm in 445 Davey.

Texts:
Galaxies in the Universe by Sparke and Gallagher
An Introduction to Modern Cosmology by Liddle

Note both books have substantial errata, which are listed on the web pages for the books.

Additional Reading:
An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics, by Carroll & Ostlie. We will refer to the "big orange book" for some background reading.

Galactic Astronomy by Binney & Merrifield (1998) and the previous edition by Mihalas & Binney (1981). This is the classic graduate text in the field.

Modern Cosmology by Dodelson. Graduate level book on cosmology.

Galaxies and Galactic Structure by Elmegreen. This is an undergraduate text at a somewhat lower level than Sparke & Gallagher but covers some topics that Sparke & Gallagher doesn't.

Modern Cosmological Observations and Problems by Bothun. Somewhat out of date, but presents a nice overview of observational cosmology.

These books, along with the required texts will be on reserve in the Science Library.

Course Syllabus in PDF format.

Astronomy Department Integrity Policy

Lectures in PDF format

Lecture 1 Tuesday, Jan 12, History of our understanding of the Milky Way and other Galaxies, Morphological Classification

• Reading: Chapter 25.1 in Carroll & Ostlie, Chapter 1.3 in Sparke & Gallagher

Lecture 2 Thursday, January 14, Morphological Classification, Galaxy Catalogs, Galaxy properties, coordinates
Lecture 3 Tuesday, January 19, Overview of Galaxy Photometry, extinction, luminosity functions. Begin Ellipticals.
Lecture 4 Thursday, January 21, Ellipticals

• Reading Chapter 6 in Sparke & Gallagher

Lecture 5 Tuesday, January 26, More ellipticals. Start spirals.
Lecture 6 Thursday, January 28, Spirals

• Reading Chapter 5 in Sparke & Gallagher

Lecture 7 Tuesday, February 2, More Spirals
Lecture 8 Thursday, February 4, Finishing up Spirals!
Lecture 9 Tuesday, February 9, Dwarf Galaxies

• Reading Chapter 4.1.3 & 4.4 in Sparke & Gallagher (dwarf galaxies in the Local Group)

Files for Problem Set 1

• Globular Cluster Data File for Problem 2
• Problem 4: Classify the following galaxies by Revised Hubble Type (as defined by Sandage in the Hubble Atlas found in the reading room). You will find looking at the Hubble Atlas for prototypes very helpful and you will probably want to read the introduction to the Hubble Atalas as well. Give a brief, one line explanation for your type for each galaxy.
  • Galaxy 1
  • Galaxy 2
  • Galaxy 3
  • Galaxy 4
  • Galaxy 5
  • Galaxy 6
  • Galaxy 7
  • Galaxy 8
  • Galaxy 9
  • Galaxy 10
  • Galaxy 11
• Now that you're a galaxy classification expert, you can classify some galaxies at the Galaxy Zoo!

Useful Links

Ned Wright's Cosmology Tutorial

Check out the Ultra Deep Field

Astrophysical Data System
Astro-ph preprint server
Annual Reviews
Steinn's LaTeX primer
AASTeX Package
The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
More on the Shapley-Curtis Debate
Check here for summer research opportunities.