Cosmic Pinwheels: Spiral Galaxies And The Universe 9789811216688, 9789811217470, 9789811216695, 9789811216701

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Spiral Encounters
1.1. Chilean Interlude
Chapter 2. The Realm of the White Nebulae
Chapter 3. Spiral Nebulae and the Photographic Revolution
3.1. End of an Era
3.2. Nebulae: Ad Infinitum
3.3. Cataloguing Nebulae from Photographic Plates
Chapter 4. From Nebulae to Galaxies
4.1. “Breathing” Stars
4.2. A “Great Debate”
4.3. Why is there a Cepheid P–L Relation?
4.4. Hubble and the Great Spirals in Triangulum and Andromeda
Chapter 5. An Expanding Universe
Chapter 6. The Hubble “Filing” System
6.1. Galaxy Morphology and Classification Circa 1960
6.2. “Filing System” Controversies
6.3. A “Zoo” of Galaxy Morphologies
6.4. In What Manner Do They Fade?
Chapter 7. From RSA to NED
7.1. Gerard de Vaucouleurs and the “Reference Catalogues”
7.2. The World of Dwarf Galaxies
7.3. Magnitudes Today: The CCD Revolution
7.4. Luminosities and Angular Dimensions
7.5. The Last of Its Kind
Chapter 8. Our Home Spiral Galaxy
Chapter 9. Galactic Extinction and the Zone of Avoidance
9.1. The Distribution of Nearby Galaxies
9.2. Galactic “Lonely Hearts”
Chapter 10. The Stars Within
Chapter 11. Star Factories
Chapter 12. M51: The 21st Century View
Chapter 13. The Curtis/Ritchey “Novae”
13.1. Low Mass Stars
13.2. High Mass Stars and the Discovery of Supernovae
Chapter 14. Rotating Pinwheels
14.1. Non-circular Motions in Spiral Galaxies
14.2. Dark Matter Today
Chapter 15. Rings of Fire
15.1. Galactic Rings as Orbital Resonances
15.2. How do Galactic Rings Form?
15.3. Special Examples
15.3.1. Dead and Dying Rings
15.3.2. Traffic Pileup
15.3.3. Misaligned Bar and a Super Nuclear Ring of Fire
15.3.4. The “Quintessential Resonance Ring Galaxy”
15.3.5. Ghost Companion
15.3.6. Wing Tip Bar
15.3.7. X Marks the Center
15.3.8. False Barred Spiral
15.3.9. Four-leaf Clover and Feathers
15.3.10. The “Quintessential Non-barred Ringed Galaxy”
Chapter 16. Waves of Density
16.1. Spirals as Density Waves
16.2. Spirals and the Inner 4:1 Resonance
16.3. What Causes Multi-armed and Flocculent Spirals?
16.4. What Drives Spiral Density Waves?
16.5. Backwards Galaxy or Backwards Astronomers?
16.6. Spiral Structure and Bars — More Recent Views
16.7. Red Spirals and the Galaxy Zoo Project
Chapter 17. A Spiral Menagerie
Chapter 18. Lifting the Dusty Veils
Chapter 19. Strange Nuclei
19.1. Supermassive Black Holes: Up Close and Personal
19.2. Monster in the Milky Way
19.3. The Quasar Time Machine
Chapter 20. Distant Spiral Galaxies
20.1. The Hubble Tuning Fork: Yesterday versus Today
Chapter 21. The Nature of S0 Galaxies
Chapter 22. Galactic Collisions and E Galaxies
22.1. Living in an E Galaxy
Chapter 23. Spirals and the Extragalactic Distance Scale
23.1. The Extragalactic Distance Scale Today
Epilogue
Appendix A. Glossary
Appendix B. Seeing Spiral Galaxies: A Tribute to Lord Rosse
Index