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An Interlude: Special & General Relativity
If there is one scientist that nearly everyone can name, it is Albert Einstein. Similarly, the one scientific theory that everyone has heard of, is...
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The Speculative Universe
The final chapter deals with topics that are, at present, still highly hypothetical. As well as controversial. There is not enough observational or...
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Star Death: White Dwarfs and Planetary Nebulae
Stars live for millions, billions and even hundreds of billions of years, and so you may be thinking how on Earth can we know anything about how a...
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Active Galaxies
We now discuss a type of galaxy that has become very prominent in astrophysical research over the past 20 or so years—active galaxies and active...
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The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram
We have already covered many topics in our description of a star’s basic characteristics, such as its mass, radius, spectral type and temperature. We...
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The Sun, Our Nearest Star
In this chapter, we shall look at the Sun, bearing in mind it is a star on the main sequence. With this approach, it is possible to use the Sun as a...
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Tools of the Trade
Let us begin our journey with several simple, but also very important, basic concepts that are used throughout all of astronomy, whether amateur of...
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Exoplanets
It is sobering to think that in a period of about 25 years our view of the universe has changed so much that we no longer believe that our Solar...
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Star Death: Supernovae, & Neutron Stars
We now turn our attention to high-mass stars. As you have probably surmised by now, the death throes of these stars are very different, and...
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Galaxies
Our galactic home is the Milky Way, but even though galaxies are faint ephemeral objects for must of us, they exist in many shapes, sizes and in...
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Spectroscopy and the Spectral Sequence
Now for a tool that is central to the topic of astrophysics—spectroscopy, and how it used to classify stellar spectra. This is an amazing subject;...
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The Solar System
Before we discuss topics of astrophysics such as stars, black holes and galaxies, it is wise to begin our journey with our closest neighbours, namely...
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Galactic Clusters and Stellar Associations
Look up at the night sky, and what do you see? Stars! In a telescope thousands, if not millions, will be seen. But surprisingly, the process of star...
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Binary Stars and Stellar Mass
It may come as a surprise to know that nearly 50% of stars in the Milky Way are not single stars, but multiple stars, and many of these are Binary...
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Star Birth
Star birth is a process that involves a considerable number of astrophysical processes, yet can be explained fairly easily. This the is the subject...
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Cosmology
Cosmology is not something that immediately jumps to mind when discussing amateur astronomy, and it is true to say that the number of objects that...
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Life on the Main Sequence
We have so far covered topics that describe how a star forms, how the mass of stars can be determined by observing binary-star systems, and how long...
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Black Holes
Everyone has heard about those most exotic of objects - Black Holes. But how many really know about them; how they are formed, their locations and...
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The Interstellar Medium and Protostars
When we look up into the night sky we see stars, and not much else. So we get the impression that between the stars, space is empty. There doesn’t...
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Die Hierarchie der kosmischen Strukturen
Wir starten mit einer Reise von der Erde durch die Galaxie zu Galaxienhaufen, Superhaufen und Filamenten.