Measuring Properties of Stars
Dr. Mitrović's Lecture Clips (audio + video, mp4) and (audio only, mp3)
- Distances to nearby stars; stellar parallax (11:07): mp4, mp3
- Sample problems involving parallax (5:48): mp4
- Maximum distances that can be measured using parallax from the Earth's surface (2:53): mp4, mp3
- Brightness and luminosity of stars (2:28): mp4, mp3
- Inverse-square law for decrease in brightness (10:09): mp4, mp3
- Sample problems involving the brightness-luminosity relation (8:11): mp4
- Knowing the luminosity of a star leads to its mass and age (3:30): mp4
- Determining the surface temperature of a star (12:04): mp4, mp3
- Determining the radius of a star using the Stefan-Boltzmann law (15:12): mp4, mp3
- Chemical composition of a star (2:33): mp4, mp3
- Emission and absorption spectra of atoms (10:25): mp4, mp3
- Spectral classes of stars (7:21): mp4, mp3
- Determining the mass of a binary star system using Kepler's third law (2:23): mp4, mp3
- Visual and spectroscopic binary systems (2:44): mp4, mp3
- Determining the mass of each star in a binary system (4:09): mp4, mp3
- The Doppler effect (14:54): mp4, mp3
- Introduction to the Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram (8:43): mp4, mp3
- The H-R diagram (continued); Eddington's mass-luminosity relation for main-sequence stars (6:10): mp4, mp3
- Practice questions about the H-R diagram (6:00): mp4
- Ranges of radii and luminosities for stars on the H-R diagram (3:08): mp4, mp3
- Stellar densities and broadening of spectral lines (4:21): mp4, mp3
- Luminosity classes of stars; determining the distance to a star using spectroscopic parallax (4:47): mp4, mp3
Dr. Mitrović's Lecture Notes (pdf)
Animations
Additional Sources of Information
- Measuring the distances to stars using geometry
- Measuring the distances to stars using properties of their light
- Measuring a star's composition:
- Measuring a star's motion
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