Light

• Electromagnetic radiation
• Waves
• EM spectrum
• Doppler Effect: Light as a Speedometer
  animations here and here
• luminosity, flux, and a reprise of the inverse square law

Stars

The Sun and the Stars: Are We Normal?

• distances to stars: parallax
• stellar masses: binaries
• the Sun in context: mass vs luminosity, HR diagram

Our Milky Way Galaxy

Our Place in the Milky Way

• The naked eye Milky Way: a luminous band encircling the sky
  southern hemisphere, zoom to dark lanes
• Galileo: telescope
• Immanuel Kant
• William Hershel's model (top view)
• Harlow Shapley globular cluster distribution: on the sky, top view in 3-D space
• interstellar dust
  another example of scattering and absorption
• simulated view of Milky Way seen from outside; a possible similar galaxy

Multiwavelength Milky Way: All-Sky Views

• optical: dust-obscured
• near infrared: stars, less dust
• radio at 21 cm: neutral hydrogen atoms