Lecture 24 – General Properties of Stars, Part 1/3
Summary / Checklist of the Main Concepts to Understand and Remember

General Idea  
• In what main ways does our understanding of the stars' location and nature differ from that in antiquity and up to the 1600s?  
• When is an astronomical object called a star? How do we know that the Sun is a star like the others?  
     
Distance and Motion  
red bullet How do we find the distances to the nearest stars (other than the Sun)? Out to what distances does it work?  
red bullet What is a parsec? Which star is closest to us (other than the Sun), and how far is it, in pc and in ly?  
• What types of stars are most common in our neighborhood?  
• What does one have to do to observe the sideways motion of stars?  
• What does one have to do to observe the stars' radial motion (towards or away from us)?  
     
Brightness  
red bullet What is the apparent magnitude of a star, and what are its values for naked-eye stars? What is the absolute magnitude of a star?  
• What information do we get about a star if we compare its apparent and absolute magnitudes?  
red bullet Which star is the brightest, as seen from Earth?  
     
     

Topics from the lecture page and textbook not listed above [or between square brackets] were not covered in class;
Underlined words indicate that I will expect students to remember a number or a name related to that topic.

left arrow previous next right arrow