The final on Monday March 17th at 8:30 will concentrate on post-midterm stuff but about 1/3 of it will cover topics from the beginning of the course.  
Here are the main topics covered since the midterm:

1. Determining ages of star clusters - how it works


2. Stellar evolution (flowchart)
  terms: protostar, brown dwarf, main sequence, red giant, super giant, shell fusion, helium flash, 
   planetary nebula, white dwarf, electron degeneracy pressure, neutron degeneracy pressure, 
   supernova, neutron star, pulsar, black hole
   

3. Variable Stars as distance indicators
  -Cepheids vs. RR Lyraes: Which are more massive/luminous?
		How do the methods for determining distance differ?  
		What are the advantages/disadvantages for both types?
  -WHich kind do we use to get distance to globular clusters? other
  galaxies?

4.  Structure of the Milky Way
  -3 components:              halo   |     disk      | bulge 
   stellar populations:	             |               |
                                     |               |
  -Dust: where is it found mostly; and why is it such a pain to
  observational astronomers?
  -Dark matter:  evidence for it in our galaxy (rotation curve)
  -Super massive black hole: evidence for it 
  

5. Galaxies in general
  -Hubble sequence of galaxies ("tuning fork")
  -differences between   ellipticals   | spirals   |   irregulars 
                                       |           |
                                       |           |
  
  -how do we know galaxies merge?
  
  -how do we know galaxies rotate?
  -two ways to detect dark matter in other galaxies:
    1.

    2.

6. Observations in Cosmology
  -Distance ladder:

   _________,  _________, ___________________, ____________, ___________
   closest    							farthest
  -List CosmoFacts:








7. Hubble's Law
  -what observations did Edwin Hubble make to find out universe is expanding
  -v = H_0 * d,  redshift = z = v/c
  -Based on COSMOLOGICAL redshift, a type of "Doppler shift"
  -How we find the age of the universe
  -Hubble's constant as a distance indicator

8. Accelerating universe
  -Type Ia supernovae (White dwarf in binary): use known luminosity to
  get distance to very distant galaxies
  -These observations show that galaxies look dimmer very far away
  (and thus a long time ago) than what we would expect for a constant
  expansion. Therefore the expansion has sped up.
  -Dark Energy is the cause of the acceleration

9. Large Scale structure
  -Clustering of galaxies (filaments), voids in between
  -what observations needed to figure out structure
  -Equivalence principle
  -Three different possible geometries of space:
   1.
   2.
   3.

10. Cosmic Microwave Background radiation
  -what is it?
  -what does it tell us about the beginning of the universe?
  -what does it tell us about the geometry of the universe?
  -what cosmological model is in agreement with it?

11. Big Bang
  -Particle formation in the very early universe (E=mc^2)
  -How were the first atoms able to form?
  -List eras: