The Intro To Astronomy Series

For those that haven't followed this blog for a long time, one of the things you may very well have missed is that back when I started, I had a series of posts about the basics of how astronomy learns what it does. It started off with a look at where the light we look at comes from, and then discussed the difficulties it has getting to us, how we detect it, and finally, how we learn things from it. I stopped added to it back in the summer of 2006 because I didn't feel there was much more to add on that really fundamental level, but I noticed today when I was planning to write up something about my current research that there are a few topics that I never explained so I intend to do a bit more on that series.

But for those that haven't seen it before, here's the list of posts in my Intro To Astronomy series. I'll keep this updated and put a link in the side bar to act as a standard reference.

Data Acquisition and Analysis
Introduction
1a. What is Light?
1b. Where Does Light Come From?
2a. Reddening, Absorption, and Extinction
2b. Light Detection
2c. Image Calibration
2d. Astrophotography
3a. The H-R Diagram
3b. Main Sequence Turnoff of clusters to determine age
3c. Spectroscopy
3d. Radial Velocity
3e - 1. Photometry Basics
3e - 2. More Photometry

Stellar Evolution
The Big Picture
Evolutionary Tracks
Isochrones
The Effects of Convection
Variables and Asteroseismology
The Synthesis of Elements in Stars
Making Nickel
Makind Dust
Hidden Creation

Galaxies
Spiral Structure
The M81 group
Galactic Evolution