Exercises in Practical Astronomy

The Sun: Rotation of the sun. Sun's period of rotation. Area of a sunspot. Minor planets or asteroids: Identification of belt asteroids. Distances of belt asteroids. Halley's Comet: Direction and length of tail. Motion in the plane of the sky. Disconnection event in ion tail. The Milky Way: Photographic stellar photometry. Star numbers and magnitudes. Variation of star densities with galactic latitude. Stars in motion: Proper motion. Radial velocity. Open star clusters: The Pleiades. Distance and age of a star cluster. Globular star clusters: Tidal radius of a globular cluster. Mass of the cluster. Interstellar extinction: The extinction or reddening law. Grain density in an interstellar dust cloud. A supernova and supernova remnants: Light curve of SN 1987A. Luminosity of SN 1987A. Expansion and distance of the Crab nebula. Dimensions and age of the Vela supernova remnant. Types of galaxies: Classification of galaxies. Classification of members of the Virgo cluster. Nearby galaxies: Mass of the Andromeda galaxy. The system of the Magellanic Clouds. Mass of the small Magellanic Cloud. Clusters of galaxies: Types of clusters. Distance of a cluster of galaxies. Dimensions and contents of a cluster. Mass of a cluster by the virial theorem. Average mass of a cluster member. Appendices. Index.