Lorenzo Sironi

Learned a lot about the basics of stellar astrophysics.

I learned about absorption and emission spectra, Wien's Law, Stefan-Boltzmann Law, Planck Distribution, Nuclear Fusion, stellar structure, and stellar evolution.

Course is highly focused on stellar astronomy. First section of the course covered basics such as magnitude, Stefan Boltzmann & Wien's laws, astronomical distances and measurements, doppler effect + redshift, and an introduction to stellar spectra. Then focused was narrowed to the atomic level; we covered Bohr model, photon emission & absorption, Lyman and Balmer limits, ionization, as well as Boltzmann and Saha equations. Final part of the course was broadly about stellar evolution, which included hydrostatic equilibrium, timescales, HR diagrams & the main sequence, and a bit on star death, including white dwards, supernovae, and a mention of black holes + neutron stars.

Star processes from birth to lifetimes to death. A lot of important astrophysical formulae.

Gained a deep understanding of stellar structure, classification, lifetimes and properties. In terms of skills, how to apply previous concepts from physics/chemistry courses to the specific case of stars and solve related problems.

We learned the basics of stars and how they work.

The workload of the class is very reasonable. Some of the classes are a bit hard to follow if you aren't comfortable with math or physics but the material is very intersting.

Take if you're an astro major! (you have to for astrophysics, I think astronomy majors should as well)

If you have a passing interest in astronomy, you will not regret taking this course.

Professor Sironi was awesome, made the material very easy to engage with