Astrophysics Is Easy!: An Introduction for the Amateur Astronomer

ISBN-13: 9783031168048 / Angielski / Miękka / 2023 / 286 str.

Michael Inglis

Opis

Astrophysics is often –with some justification – regarded as incomprehensible without the use of higher mathematics. Consequently, many amateur astronomers miss out on some of the most fascinating aspects of the subject. Astrophysics Is Easy! cuts through the difficult mathematics and explains the basics of astrophysics in accessible terms. Using nothing more than plain arithmetic and simple examples, the workings of the universe are outlined in a straightforward yet detailed and easy-to-grasp manner.Following on the success of the first and second editions, this fully updated third edition covers the significant changes in astrophysics theories and research that have occurred in the last five years, including new material on: exomoons, exocomets and exoasteroids; Special and General Relativity; gravitational waves, their origins and detection; telescope optics; black hole astrophysics; and more.For each topic under discussion, an observing list is included so that observers can actually see for themselves the concepts presented – stars of the spectral sequence, nebulae, galaxies, even black holes. The book also features in-text, nonmathematical questions and end-of-chapter problems – all with their accompanying solutions – to help readers discuss and digest the material.

Spis treści

Ch 1. Tools of the trade

1. New Section - Telescope Basics 

a. Basic formulae to explain magnification, resolution, field-of-view, light-grasp, etc..

b. Use of internet for star-maps, planetariums, etc..

2. Distances

a. The Nearest Stars To Us

3. Brightness and Luminosity

4. Magnitudes

a. The Brightest Stars

5. Colour

a. Coloured Stars

6. Size and Mass

a. The Biggest Stars

7. Star Constituents

8. Spectra and Spectroscopy

9. Stellar Classification

a. The Spectral Sequence

10. The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram

11. The H-R diagram and Stellar Radius

12. The H-R diagram and Stellar Luminosity

13. The H-R diagram and Stellar Mass

Ch 2. The Solar System

1 The Scientific Method

2 Early History

i. The Ancient Greeks

ii. Copernicus

iii. Tycho

iv. Kepler

v. Galileo

vi. Newton

3 The Motions of the Planets

b. Kepler’s Three Laws

c. Newton & Gravity

d. Newton’s Laws of Motion

e. Newton’s Law Of Gravitational Attraction

f. The Tides

2. New Section - The Greenhouse Effect

3. Observing the Planets

Ch 3. The Interstellar Medium

1. Introduction

2. Nebulæ

3. Emission Nebulæ

a. Brightest Emission Nebulæ

4. Dark Nebulæ

a. Famous Dark Nebulæ

5. Reflection Nebulæ

a. Brightest Reflection Nebulae

6. Molecular Clouds

7. Protostars

8. The Jeans Criterion

Ch 4. Star Birth

1. The Birth of a Star

2. Pre-Main Sequence Evolution and the Effect of Mass

3. Mass Loss and Mass Gain 

a. T Tauri Stars

b. Discs and Winds

4. Clusters and Groups of Stars

a. Galactic Star Clusters

i. Bright Star Clusters

5. Stellar Associations and Streams

a. Bright Stellar Associations and Streams

6. Star Formation Triggers

Ch 5. The Sun and Stars

1. The Sun – The Nearest Star

a. From the Core to the Surface

b. The Proton-Proton Chain

c. Energy Transport from the Core to the Surface

d. New Section – Sunspots

e. New Section – The Solar Cycle

2. Binary Stars and Stellar Mass

3. Binary Stars

a. Visual Binary Stars

4. The Masses of Orbiting Stars

5. Lifetimes of Main-Sequence Stars

6. Red Giant Stars

a. Bright Red Giant Stars

7. Helium Burning and the Helium Flash

a. Helium Burning

b. The Helium Flash

8. Star Clusters, Red Giants and the H-R Diagram

9. Post Main-Sequence Star clusters: The Globular Clusters.

a. Bright Globular Clusters

b. New Section – Are Globulars galaxy corpses?

10. Pulsating Stars

a. Why do Stars Pulsate?

b. Cepheid Variables and the Period-Luminosity Relation

c. Cepheid’s: Temperature and Mass

d. RR Lyrae and Long-Period Variable Stars

e. Bright Cepheid Variables

f. Bright RR Lyrae Variables

Ch 6. The Death of Stars

1. The Asymptotic Giant Branch

2. Dredge-Ups

3. Mass Loss and Stellar Winds

4. Infrared Stars

5. The End Of An AGB Star’s Life

a. Bright Carbon Stars

6. Planetary Nebulae

a. Bright Planetary Nebulae

7. White Dwarf Stars

a. Electron Degeneracy

b. The Chandrasekhar Limit

c. New Section – Is the Chandrasekhar Limit correct?

d. White Dwarf Evolution

e. White Dwarf Origins

f. Bright White Dwarfs

8. High Mass Stars and Nuclear Burning

a. Bright Supergiant Stars

9. Iron, Supernovæ and the Formation of the Elements

a. Supernovæ Remnants

b. Supernovæ Types

c. New Section - Hypernovae

10. The End Result of High Mass Star Evolution: Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Black Holes

a. Neutron Stars

b. Pulsars

NEW Chapter - Special Relativity

a. The Speed of Light

b. The Lorentz Equations.

c. Paradox’s.

NEW Chapter - General Relativity

a. Warped Space and Time

b. Why is Gravity so weak?

c. General relativity in the solar system.

d. Gravitational Waves

e. 2018 – First contact

NEW Chapter – Black Holes 

a. The Singularity

b. Time Travel

c. Kerr Black Holes

d. Rotating and non-symmetrical Black Holes

e. Imaging the Event Horizon

Ch 7. Exoplanets

2. A new science

a. Methods of Detection

b. Bright Exoplanets

c. New Section – Exo-moons, exo-comets, exo-asteroids

Ch 8. Galaxies

1. Introduction

2. Galaxy Types

3. Galaxy Structure

4. Stellar Populations

5. Hubble Classification of Galaxies

6. New section - Other types of galaxy classification

7. Observing Galaxies

a. Spiral Galaxies

b. Barred Spiral Galaxies

c. Elliptical Galaxies

d. Lenticular Galaxies

e. Irregular Galaxies

Ch 9. Active Galaxies

1. The Active Galactic Zoo

2. The structure and evolution of AGN’s

a. Brightest Active Galaxies

Ch 10. Cosmology

1 Gravitational Lensing

2 Redshift, Distance and the Hubble Law

3 Quasar Redshift Problem

4 Clusters of Galaxies

a. Groups and Clusters of Galaxies

5 The Beginning of the Universe

6 The End of the Universe

7 Other Cosmologies

8 Amateur Observational Cosmology?

New Chapter – the Speculative Universe

a. Beyond the Multiverse

b. Infinite Universe

c. Inflation, then the Big Bang.

d. Filamentary nature of Dark Matter.

e. MOND – The elephant in the room

f. Endnote

O autorze

Dr. Mike Inglis is a professional astronomer who also has a life-long passion for amateur astronomy. In addition to observing the night sky whenever he can he has worked at the University of Hertfordshire and Warwick University in the UK, at Princeton University in the USA, and used some of the world’s largest telescopes in Australia, La Palma and Hawaii. He is the author of several astronomy books for the amateur and student and has had many articles in both popular astronomy magazines and research level journals. He is currently Professor of Astrophysics at the State University of New York, USA.

Blurb

Astrophysics is often –with some justification – regarded as incomprehensible without the use of higher mathematics. Consequently, many amateur astronomers miss out on some of the most fascinating aspects of the subject. Astrophysics Is Easy! cuts through the difficult mathematics and explains the basics of astrophysics in accessible terms. Using nothing more than plain arithmetic and simple examples, the workings of the universe are outlined in a straightforward yet detailed and easy-to-grasp manner.

Following on the success of the first and second editions, this fully updated third edition covers the significant changes in astrophysics theories and research that have occurred in the last five years, including new material on: exomoons, exocomets and exoasteroids; Special and General Relativity; gravitational waves, their origins and detection; telescope optics; black hole astrophysics; and more.

For each topic under discussion, an observing list is included so that observers can actually see for themselves the concepts presented – stars of the spectral sequence, nebulae, galaxies, even black holes. The book also features in-text, nonmathematical questions and end-of-chapter problems – all with their accompanying solutions – to help readers discuss and digest the material. 

This new 3rd edition contains several expanded and completely new chapters, and for the first time  each chapter now contains many unique and relevant  thought questions and numerical problems