Galaxies, quasars and black holes 0800-OG-GALAX

1. Introduction to extragalactic astronomy. Our Milky Way as a Galaxy. Galactic Zoo.

2. The Tools of Extragalactic Astronomy. Telescopes and satellites in all bands of electromagnetic spectrum. Observations of gravitational waves.

3. The structure and kinematics of the Galaxy. Distribution of stars. Chemical composition and age. Dust and gas. Cosmic Rays. The visible halo. The distance to the Galactic Center. The Rotation Curve of the galaxy. The quest for dark matter.

4. The galactic center. The central star cluster. The black hole in the center of the Milky Way. The proper motion of Sagittarius A.

5. The world of Galaxies. Morphological Classification. The Hubble sequence. Properties of elliptical and spiral galaxies. Black Holes in the centres of galaxies. Extragalactic distance determination.

6. Active galactic nuclei (AGN). Brief history of AGNs. Properties of quasars. AGN Zoo. Supermassive black holes as the central engines of AGNs. Cosmology and AGNs.

7. Radio observations of AGNs. Brief history. Synchrotron radiation. Universe at radio waves.

8. Clusters and Groups of galaxies. The Local Group. Morphological Classification of clusters. Spatial distribution of galaxies. Galaxy groups.

9. Introduction to cosmology. Fundamental cosmological observations. An expanding Universe. The necessity of a Big Bang. Thermal History of the Universe. Achievements and problems of the Standard Model.

10. The search for life in the Universe. Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and other programs.