Celestial Objects• Solar System Objects

– Sun, Moon, Planets and Their Moons

• Galactic Objects– Star Formation Regions

– Open Clusters

– Globular Clusters

– Planetary Nebulae

– Supernova Remnants

• Extra-galactic Objects– Galaxies

Celestial Objects• Solar System Information

• The brightest examples of Celestial Splendors

http://www.seds.org/messier/Messier.html

http://www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/intro.html

Earth’s Moon• Complete set of phases over 29.5 days

– (27.3 day orbital period)

Planets• Planos = Wanderer among the fixed stars• Bright disk (non stellar) in small telescopes

Milky Way Galaxy• The Milky Way center in

the direction of Sagittarius

• A comet, nature’s own

cosmic dirty snowball.

Open Cluster• Thousands of stars, sometimes gravitationally bound

• Contain the youngest, hottest galactic stars

• Associated with star formation regions in the galaxy.

Globular Cluster• Hundreds of thousands of stars, gravitationally bound and

spherically symmetric.

• Contain the oldest galactic stars

• Symmetrically distributed

about the galaxy.

Star Formation Regions• Giant clouds of gas and dust

(mostly Hydrogen and Helium)

Planetary Nebula• Hydrogen rich atmosphere from a dying solar-type star

• Central core of nebula (white-dwarf)

Supernova Remnant• Stellar Explosion Leftovers• Star Guts

Spiral Galaxies• Millions upon millions of stars

• Star forming regions abound• Globular clusters identified

Elliptical Galaxies• Millions upon millions of stars

• Resemble Globular Clusters

only on a Galactic scale.

• No spiral structure, very little star formation