Course Web Site and Preliminary Syllabus

Stellar Astronomy

Astronomy 3190: Topics in Astronomy, University of Oklahoma: 2006 Fall

Don't Panic

The course motto: very reassuring I think.

Classes: Places and times.

1. Nielsen Hall, Rm 302, MWF 10:30--11:20 am (102A)

M31 (the Andromeda Galaxy) and the Moon in collage. The relative sizes on the sky are correct. Click on image for more information. Credit: REU program, N.A.Sharp /NOAO / AURA/ NSF.

1. Introductory Astronomy Web Lectures (IAWL) for the Solar System/Cosmology courses.
2. Astronomy David Jeffery astronomy encyclopedia site: general physics, science, and technology are included too.
3. Astronomy Links
4. Marks and Grades Section 102A
5. Physics Links Look-up pages mainly.

1. OU Libraries and catalog
2. OU Memorial Union and events
3. OU Physics & Astronomy
4. OU Student Organizations

Syllabus Items

Jump in with Questions? at any time, of course.

Wait 15 seconds at least. (A self-note to the instructor.)

1. Prerequisites: None that I know of.

2. A few fun astro images.

   Alien mesmerized by words.

   But as Dorothy said, there's no place like home.

   Earthrise from Apollo 11, 1969jul16. Credit: NASA.

   Well not quite.

   Beware of aliens bearing grades.

1. Massive Stars
2. Wolf-Rayet Stars

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Massive Stars

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Persons
1. Philip Massey Lowell Observatory.

Papers

\bibitem[Herrero \&~Najarro(2005)]{herrero2005}  Herrero, A., \&~Najarro, F. 2005,
          in Proceedings of "Massive Stars and High-Energy Emission in OB Associations", 
          ed. G. Rauw, Y. Naz\'e, R. Blomme, \&~E. Gosset
          (Li\`ege:  JENAM), 21  
          % 
          % ADS Reference
          % Title: Parameters of massive stars in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies.
          % We present in this contribution a review of recent results of parameters of massive OB stars in 
          % the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds and nearby spirals. The review is timely because of the strong lowering 
          % of the temperature scale of Galactic OB stars produced by the new model atmospheres, including sphericity, 
          % blanketing and mass-loss, that are also discussed, and because of the boost suffered by extragalactic 
          % stellar physics in the last years. The effects on the determination of mass-loss and the Modified Wind 
          % Momentum-Luminosity Relationship are discussed, and a comparison with evolutionary models is provided. 
          % We finally present a comparison of abundances from OB stars and H II regions in Orion and M 33.



\bibitem[Leitherer(2006)]{leitherer2006}
    Leitherer, C. 2006, in Mass Loss from Stars and the Evolution of Stellar Clusters:
    Proc. of a Workshop Held in Honor of Henny Lamers, ed. 
    A. de Koter, L. Smith \& R. Waters (San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific), in press, 
    astro-ph/0608698
    % astro-ph/0608698.
    % Title:  Spectral Synthesis of Massive Stars in Clusters.
    % Stellar clusters are thought to be the simplest stellar systems and the closest observational 
    % counterparts to theoretical models for single stellar populations. Progress in our understanding 
    % of the atmospheres and evolution of massive stars has led to generally reliable synthesis models. The future release 
    % of new evolution models with rotation, however, will require non-trivial updates to previously published 
    % synthesis models, in particular for all Wolf-Rayet and red supergiant related quantities. Cluster 
    % synthesis work is currently progressing from a purely stellar approach to a more comprehensive 
    % stellar+cluster perspective. The photometric evolution of stars and the dynamical evolution of clusters 
    % are delicately interwoven. Recent work attempts to combine these seemingly related fields.



\bibitem[Massey(2003)]{massey2003}
      Massey, P. 2003, ARA\&A, 41, 15 
     % 
      % ADS reference. 
      % 41 pages.  It's massive.
      % Title:  MASSIVE STARS IN THE LOCAL GROUP: Implications for Stellar Evolution and Star Formation.
      % The galaxies of the Local Group serve as important laboratories for understanding the physics of massive stars. 
      % Here I discuss what is involved in identifying various kinds of massive stars in nearby galaxies: the hydrogen-burning 
      % O-type stars and their evolved He-burning evolutionary descendants, the luminous blue variables, red supergiants, 
      % and Wolf-Rayet stars. Primarily I review what our knowledge of the massive star population in nearby galaxies has taught us 
      % about stellar evolution and star formation. I show that the current generation of stellar evolutionary models do well at matching 
      % some of the observed features and provide a look at the sort of new observational data that will provide a benchmark against 
      % which new models can be evaluated.



\bibitem[Massey(2006)]{massey2006}
      Massey, P. 2006, in "Massive Stars in the Local Group: Star Formation and Stellar Evolution", 
      The Local Group as an Astrophysical Labatory, Proceedings of the May 2003 STScI Symposium, 
      ed. M. Livio and T. M. Brown, (Cambridge:  University of Cambridge Press), 164,
      astro-ph/0307531
      % Title:  Massive Stars in the Local Group: Star Formation and Stellar Evolution.
      % The galaxies of the Local Group that are currently forming stars can serve as our laboratories for understanding 
      % star formation and the evolution of massive stars. In this talk I will summarize what I think
      % we've learned about these topics over the past few decades of research, and briefly mention
      % what I think needs to happen next.

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Wolf-Rayet Stars

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Persons
1. Paul A. Crowther University of Sheffield.

Papers

\bibitem[Crowther(2006)]{crowther2006}
    Crowther, P. A. 2006, in  
    Proc. "Stellar Evolution at Low Metallicity: Mass-Loss, Explosions, Cosmology",
    ed. H. Lamers, N. Langer, \& T. Nugis (Provo, Utah:  Astronomical Society of the Pacific), in press, astro-ph/0510063 
    % astro-ph/0510063. 
    % Title:  Observed Metallicity Dependence of Winds from WR stars.
    % A review of observational evidence in favour of a metallicity dependence of WN and WC stars is presented. 
    % New near-IR studies of Milky Way, LMC and SMC early-type WN stars are presented, with weake winds amongst 
    % WN stars containing hydrogen. A metallicity dependence is supported for WN stars with hydrogen, 
    % with dM/dt propto Z^alpha with alpha approx 0.8 +/- 0.2 The influence of CNO content upon WN subtypes is discussed. ...



\bibitem[Crowther(2007)]{crowther2007}
    Crowther, P. A. 2006, ARAA, 45, in press, astro-ph/0610356 
    % astro-ph/0610356.
    % Title:  Physical Properties of Wolf-Rayet Stars.