Astronomy and star cycles

[Lsbcal]

One of our posters (JoeDreaming) suggested this excellant NASA site, Astronomy Picture of the Day . I really liked that idea of just checking it out occasionally or daily. Then I got more interested in understanding the star life cycles. Periodically I rekindle that interest. I found some useful study material below.

1) This site goes into quite a bit of detail. One can take quite a bit of time studying this (there's no hurry ). Also the lower link goes to the site home page: Life and Death of Stars

2) This site contains detailed lectures on astronomy (see Lectures link). It also has a link to a Cosmology lecture series (AST 123). Astronomy (U of Oregon undergrad courses)

3) This site is a good encyclopedia site for some astronomy topics: Cosmos

4) And there is always good stuff on Wikipedia. This link has a nice periodic table showing where all the elements of our Earth come from: nucleosynthesis



Feel free to add your favorite astronomy sites. There was a thread on astronomy awhile back but I don't have the link.

 

[Lsbcal]

Well just in case there is anyone here interested in this tech stuff, here is a lecture series I came across today from Max Pettini at Cambridge Univ.
lectures on the structure and evolution of stars

It is fairly technical and probably is used at the undergraduate level at Cambridge. The nice thing is that these PDF's can be easily saved for reference. Lots of math.

 

[Danmar]

I've always been interested in Astronomy and thought I would get more into it in retirement. Alas, hasn't happened.

 

[Lsbcal]

I've always been interested in Astronomy and thought I would get more into it in retirement. Alas, hasn't happened.

That astronomy picture of the day site above is a light way to get interested.

 

[USGrant1962]

Not a website, but as a teenager I loved Burnham's Celestial Handbook.

APOD is a great site.

 

[jjquantz]

Well just in case there is anyone here interested in this tech stuff, here is a lecture series I came across today from Max Pettini at Cambridge Univ.
lectures on the structure and evolution of stars

It is fairly technical and probably is used at the undergraduate level at Cambridge. The nice thing is that these PDF's can be easily saved for reference. Lots of math.

Thanks for the link. A quick glance at the notes takes me back 37+ years to my Intro to Stellar Evolution Class at university. I might have to spend some more time on them. I think that I still have my old textbook - it would be interesting to compare.

 

[jim584672]

You should check out this really nice program:

Stellarium

"Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope."

 

[CaptTom]

You should check out this really nice program:

Stellarium

"Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope."

Thanks! I went to download this, and remembered I already had a folder to downloading astronomy programs into. Apparently it's been a while. Some file time stamps date back to 1989!

Anyone remember Dance of the Planets? Astrolab? Skyglobe? Geoclock?

Some are DOS programs, others for Windows (probably version 3.1.) I wonder if any of them would still run.

 

[Danmar]

That astronomy picture of the day site above is a light way to get interested.

Right. I also have Nightsky on my IPad and look at it from time to time. Sometimes use high powered binoculars to pick out the moons of Jupiter, Mars, or the rings of Saturn. I always though I would get a nice telescope and really get into it, but realized I probably would lose interest in short order.

 

[6miths]

Have always been into astronomy. Of course growing up with the space program likely helped very much. Have dragged my little 4" scope all over the world and like Danmar always figured that I would get a 8" or 10' version one day but as I don't think that I would get into astrophotography in a big way and such incredible images are available from Hubble and other sources I don't think it is worth it for me. I still manage to read Sky & Telescope, Astronomy and SkyNews most months so figure that I am doing ok. And with apps like Night Sky and Sky Chart it's easy to get the kids interested. We are lucky to have a cottage in a dark sky preserve so the children grew up knowing how incredible the night sky can really look.