About The Book

This collection of problems is intended for secondary school students. The topics of the problems and their arrangement correspond to the syllabus and the textbook.

A distinctive feature of this problem book is that it includes assignments for independent work. Independent observations and measurements based on drawings and photographs simulate the work of an astronomer and give students an idea of how science studies objects. To increase the number of such exercises and make fuller use of the illustrative material in the astronomy textbook, some of the independent assignments are proposed to be carried out using its drawings and photographs.
When solving the problems, it is sometimes necessary to use a movable star chart and tabular data, which are also provided in the textbook.
The answers given at the end of the book help to check the correctness of problem solutions.

Translated from the Russian and typeset in LaTeX by Damitr Mazanav

This book is an Open Educational Resource (OER)

Released under Creative Commons BY Share Alike 4.0 License.

You can get the book here and here

PS: I hope there are no major blunders in the translation or the typesetting. But if you find any please drop a line.

Contents

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Independent Observations of the Sky 1
1.2 Brightness and Magnitudes 7
1.3 Celestial Sphere and Angular Measurements 9
1.4 Geographical Latitude and Celestial Coordinates 11
1.5 Ecliptic and Wandering Bodies 15
1.6 Time, Longitude and Calendar 23

2 Structure of the Solar System 27
2.1 Planetary Motion and Periods 27
2.2 Conditions of Visibility of the Planets 32
2.3 Gravitation and Masses of Celestial Bodies 33
2.4 Elements of Astronautics 36
2.5 Earth 39
2.6 Distances and Parallax 44

3 Physical Nature of the Bodies of the Solar System 49
3.1 Spectral Analysis 49
3.2 Planets 54
3.3 Comets and Meteors 56
3.4 The Moon, Its Motion and Nature 59
3.5 Eclipses 62
3.6 Exercises for Independent Study: Planets and Comets 67

4 The Sun and Stars 75
4.1 The Sun 75
4.2 Tasks for Independent Work 79
4.3 Nature of Stars 82
4.4 Double Stars. Stellar Masses 90
4.5 Variable and Novae Stars 99

5 Structure of the Universe 107
5.1 Motions of Stars 107

6 Solutions 119
6.1 Introduction 119
6.2 Structure of the Solar System 124
6.3 Physical Nature of the Bodies of the Solar System 130
6.4 The Sun and Stars 135
6.5 Structure of the Universe 137