Course

Unit 1

Historical introduction: Old Indian and western – astronomy – Aryabhatta, Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Galileo – Olbers paradox – solar system – satellites, planets, comets, meteorites, asteroids.

Practical astronomy – telescopes and observations & techniques – constellations, celestial coordinates, ephemeris.

Celestial mechanics – Kepler’s laws – and derivations from Newton’s laws.

Sun: Structure and various layers, sunspots, flares, faculae, granules, limb darkening, solar wind and climate.

Unit 2

Stellar astronomy: H-R diagram, color-magnitude diagram – main sequence – stellar evolution – red giants, white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes – accretion disc – Schwartzchild radius – stellar masses Saha–Boltzman equation – derivation and interpretation.

Variable stars: Cepheid, RR Lyrae and Mira type variables – Novae and Super novae. Binary and multiple star system – measurement of relative masses and velocities. Interstellar clouds – Nebulae.

Unit 3

• “Textbook of Astronomy and Astrophysics with elements of Cosmology”, V. B. Bhatia, Narosa publishing 2001.
• William Marshall Smart, Robin Michael Green “On Spherical Astronomy“, (Editor) Carroll, Bradley W Cambridge University Press ,1977
• Bradley W.Carroll and Dale A. Ostlie. “Introduction to modern Astrophysics” Addison-Wesley, 1996.
• Bradley W.Carroll and Dale A. Ostlie, “An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics” AddisonWesley Publishing Company,1996
• ‘Stellar Astronomy’ by K. D Abhayankar.
• ‘Solar Physics’ by K. D Abhayankar.