Our Galaxy - brilliant (but very hard) set of recent lectures

[madbadgalaxyman]

Here is an excellent set of downloadable lecture slides (.pdf files) about the Milky Way, from a very recent summer school for advanced astronomy students.

There has been very little written in terms of large-scale overviews of our own Galaxy, for a long time. So it is a relief to find this clear overview.

here it is:
http://www.iac.es/congreso/itn-gaia2013/pages/programme-and-lecturers.php

NOTE!!!
This is a particularly difficult and high-level set of lectures, actually intended for professional astronomers starting their careers. If you do not have very substantial knowledge of stellar evolution and also the properties of galaxies, you will find them much much too difficult. The lectures by Gerhard on stellar dynamics are particularly hard...similar to the level of a graduate in applied mathematics.

[madbadgalaxyman]

If the slides all seem too mind-boggling, try this alternative.....
boggle your mind on Kenneth C. Freeman's and Joss Bland-Hawthorn's excellent and very influential 2002 review paper (in ARAA) about our Own Galaxy, which pioneered the approach of "near-field cosmology":

ftp://www.aao.gov.au/pub/local/jbh/araa/Galleys/

Download the file ARAA_2002.pdf, and you will find that this is a clear and well-written description of the intricate (requiring knowledge of nearly all of astronomy and astrophysics!) modern approach to characterizing our own Galaxy and its evolution.


See also:

RAVE
http://www.rave-survey.aip.de/rave/pages/project/index.jsp

GALAH
http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/galah/home.html

[renormalised]

Good set of downloads :)

Will keep them for reference and review purposes :)

[renormalised]

Good thing I have all their recommended textbooks :)