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Table of Contents for the First Edition (about 380 pages)

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 The stars
Star light, star bright ... / Stellar spectra / The lives of the stars / Binary stars / Stellar photometry: the magnitude system
1.2 Our Milky Way
Gas in the Milky Way/ What's where in the Milky Way: coordinate systems
1.3 Other galaxies
Galaxy photometry
1.4 Galaxies in the expanding Universe
Densities and ages
1.5 The pregalactic era: a brief history of matter
The hot early Universe / Making the elements / Recombination: light and matter uncoupled

Chapter 2: Mapping our Milky Way

2.1 The solar neighborhood / Trigonometric parallax / Luminosity functions and mass functions
2.2 The stars in the Galaxy
Distances from kinematics / Spectroscopic parallax: the vertical structure of the disk / Distances to star clusters /
An infrared view
2.3 Galactic rotation
Measuring the Galactic rotation curve / Gas in the Milky Way's disk / Gas in the inner Galaxy /
Gravitational lensing --- a search for the `dark matter'

Chapter 3: The orbits of the stars

3.1 Motion under gravity
3.2 Why the Galaxy isn't bumpy: two-body relaxation
Strong close encounters / Distant weak encounters / Effects of two-body relaxation
3.3 Orbits of disk stars: epicycles
3.4 The collisionless Boltzmann equation
Mass density in the Galactic disk / Integrals of motion, and some of their uses

Chapter 4: Our backyard: the Local Group

4.1 Satellites of the Milky Way
The Magellanic Clouds / Variable stars as `standard candles' / Dwarf spheroidal galaxies / Life in orbit: the tidal limit
4.2 Spirals of the Local Group
The Andromeda galaxy / M33: a late-type spiral
4.3 How did the Local Group galaxies form?
Making the Milky Way / The buildup of heavy elements
4.4 Dwarf galaxies in the Local Group
Dwarf ellipticals and dwarf spheroidals / Dwarf irregular galaxies
4.5 Past and future of the Local Group

Chapter 5: Spiral and S0 galaxies

5.1 The distribution of starlight
Astronomical array detectors / Surface photometry of disk galaxies
5.2 Observing the gas
Radio telescopes / Cool gas in the disk
5.3 Gas motions and the masses of disk galaxies
The rotation curve / Dark matter in disk galaxies / The Tully-Fisher relation
Interlude: the sequence of disk galaxies
5.4 Spiral arms and galactic bars
Observed spiral patterns / Theories for spiral structure / Barred disks
5.5 Bulges and centers of disk galaxies
Bulges / Nuclei and central black holes
5.6 Groups: the homes of disk galaxies
Gas in groups of galaxies / Galaxy collisions and mergers

Chapter 6: Elliptical galaxies

6.1 Photometry
The shapes of elliptical galaxies / Twisty, disky, or boxy?
6.2 Motions of the stars
Measuring stellar velocities / The Faber-Jackson relation and the fundamental plane / How fast should an elliptical galaxy rotate? / Stellar orbits in a triaxial galaxy
6.3 Stellar populations and gas
6.4 Dark matter and black holes
Dark halos / Central black holes?
6.5 Galaxy clusters: the domain of elliptical galaxies
Rich clusters of galaxies / Elliptical galaxies: nature, nurture, or merger? / Masses of galaxy clusters: gravitational lensing

Chapter 7: Large-scale distribution of galaxies

7.1 Observations of large-scale structure
Measures of galaxy clustering
7.2 Expansion of a homogeneous Universe
7.3 Growth of structure: peculiar motions
How do peculiar velocities build up?
7.4 Growth of structure: clusters, walls, and voids

Chapter 8: Active galactic nuclei and the early history of galaxies

8.1 Active galactic nuclei
Seyfert galaxies / Radio galaxies / Synchrotron emission from radio galaxies / Quasars / Superluminal motion and beaming in relativistic jets / Distribution of quasars in space
8.2 Quasar absorption lines
Absorbing gas close to the quasar/ Intergalactic gas / The damped Lyman alpha clouds / Metals in the intergalactic gas / The Lyman alpha forest
8.3 The first galaxies
Observing the earliest galaxies / How and when did galaxies form?

Appendix

A. Units and conversions
B. Bibliography
C. Hints for problems

Index