Click for ppt of Meteorites as Stars
Click for ppt of GCE corrected [El/H] vs Tc
Click for 79 new plots with GCE corrections
For a new view of Galactic Chemical Evolution: Try This
Click for Condensation Temperature Dependence of Precision Differential Abundances
Sirius: Identifications; supplement to
ApJ, 826, 158, 2016
The History of Matter
is a short textbook for a course I gave shortly before I retired in 2007.
The astronomy is a little bit dated, but the physical and geological
principles may still be of interest.
10 Aql: Wavelengths and identifications
Wavelength measurements for the B2 IVp star
HD 133518
Online data for PDS2
HD 101412: A sharp-lined Herbig Ae star
whose abundances differ significantly from solar.
Check this essay on Pluto as a planet
MMB Click here
The Super-Rich Mercury Star
HD 65949
HR 710 (HD 15144): Wavelengths, identifications,
and equivalent widths.
Click for wavelength measurements in HD 101065,
now from 3047A to 1.04 microns.
A wavelength identification list for the
HgMn star HR 7143 (HD 175640)
Take this link for
PowerPoint presentations on Atomic (and a little)
Molecular Data and
Lines as Continuous Opacity
for IAU Symposium 210.
The table of ionization energies was prepared
for IAU Symposium 210.
Link here for resume of recent
work on Balmer lines (cf. Astron. Ap., 387, 595, 2002).
The sun and similar stars have compositions often called the
standard abundance distribution, or SAD
.
roAp Stars Have Abnormal Atmospheres
Click for an illustration of H-alpha profiles.
Check out the essay on
The Grand Canyon and the Moon.
Robert Louis Stevenson's Where Go the
Boats?
Visitors to this page since 20 September 1999:
I am also the grandfather of
Shelby Jane Cowley. Click for an
image of Shelby and her dad
taken in the spring of 2001.
We are also maintaining an
electronic version of the Bidelman HR 465
line identification list (Pub. Univ. Mich. Vol. 12, No. 3, 1995) in
the anonymous ftp space pub/get/cowley/hr465. Documentation is in
the file read.me. A new study of Dy III by Spector, Sugar, and Wyart
has enabled us to make additional identifications, not yet
incorporated in the posted list. An older study of
HR 4816 = HD 110066 is also available.
We finished work on the spectrum of the bizarre object known
as Przybylski's star in late 1999. The new study
superceedes the preliminary study by Cowley and Mathys.
The reference is Monthly Notices, 317,
299 (2000).
We have prepared a WebPage on Przybylski and
his famous star. In addition to the recent results
including line abundances and identification lists, you will find
a picture of the man a key to the pronunciation of his name.
For many years, we thought Przybylski's star was unique.
Recently,
after a detailed study, we decided we agreed with a small number of
colleagues who said it was extreme, but a member of a reasonably
well understood class. Over the last six months, we have learned of
significant peculiarities in the spectra of members of this class of
rapidly oscillating Ap stars (roAp's). Contrary to a long held view,
the atmospheres of these stars cannot be normal. Evidence for this
is in a short paper in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol. 367
(No. 3), pp. 939-942 (2001). We also put it up on astro-ph.
Click here for an illustration of the CWA.
Donald Bord and I have continued our work on abundances
of trace elemental species in the solar atmosphere. Recent work,
including collaboration with James Lawler, and Christopher Sneden
has been on lutetium, holmium, and terbium. Several of the Tb II
lines are influenced by high members of the Balmer series. This
provoked a study
to see how realistically we could make calculations
of Balmer lines in general.
Check
out some of the material below including links to a web text
for solar system astronomy. In the spring of 1999, our class did an
exercise using a restricted
three-body program that opened my eyes to some possibilities for
the capture of satellites. I don't think this would be new to experts
in this field, but you might get a kick out of what I call
restricted three-body capture.
I am an emeritus professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan. My
specialty is analytical stellar spectroscopy, or stellar abundances.
I am generally interested in abundances of physical systems
throughout the universe.
Errata for the textbook An Introduction to Cosmochemistry is
available here.
A CV is located here.
Free Turoring is available for all 100-level courses by the Student Astronomical Society. The instruction is carried out by advanced undergraduate astronomy majors.
We once offered a 4 credit hour course in Modern Planetary Astronomy (Astron 115) which was approved as QR/2. It was a 4-hour credit introductory course, with the same prerequisites as Astronomy 101/111 and 102/112. Since I am now retired, the course is no longer available in the old form. However, some links to the materials are still maintained as they may be of general interest.
The complete web text is available online and you may peruse it. A newer edition, courtesy of Barbara Eckstein is essentially complete. Links to these files have been taken off line, but if you are interested in them, email cowley@umich.edu, and I should be able to make them available to you. An older, more printer-friendly text is divided into three sections. You may click on 1,2, or 3. You can also examine the 10 laboratory exercises. There will be no assigned text book.
My approach to planetary astronomy was to emphasize similarities of materials and processes at work on the planets AND the earth, and how these processes write the history of these bodies in their chemistry and mineralogy. The course presented the earth as a planet, and the planets and some of their satellites as bodies that have similarities as well as differences with the earth. I also emphasized the techniques and tools used in the exploration of the solar system, drawn from physics, chemistry, geology. The last few lectures covered modern developments in molecular- and biochemistry and the ever-relevant question of life on other worlds.