Textbooks

Astronomy & Astrophysics Course

This textbook is a copy of the 2010 edition of Nick Strobel’s online textbook, Astronomy Notes. These documents were created for his introductory astronomy courses at Bakersfield College, and he has kindly granted permission to have them reproduced elsewhere on the Internet. This material (including images) is copyrighted by Nick Strobel, and offered to the Internet as a resource in astronomy education. See the copyright notice for fair use practices. A hard-copy version of this website (2010 edition) is available for purchase. See the official website for updates. If you find this material useful, you are encouraged to support the official Astronomy Notes website.

We recommend students use the SixDay version of this textbook, since it has been customized for use with this course. Any edits other than corrections for typos and clarification are noted in each chapter.

Astronomy Notes by Nick Strobel

Table of Contents

  1. Astronomy as a Science and a Sense of Scale

  2. Method for Finding Scientific Truth

  3. Astronomy Without a Telescope

  4. History and Philosophy of Western Astronomy

  5. Newton’s Law of Gravity

  6. Einstein’s Relativity

  7. Electromagnetic Radiation (Light)

  8. Telescopes

  9. Planetary Science

  10. Solar System Fluff

  11. Determining Star Properties

  12. The Sun and Stellar Structure

  13. Lives and Deaths of Stars

  14. The Interstellar Medium and the Milky Way

  15. Other Galaxies and Active Galaxies

  16. Cosmology

  17. Life Beyond the Earth

Physics Course

Coming soon …