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