The invited reviews are intended to be accessible to people who know little or nothing about the techniques or what they reveal about the internal structure and dynamics of stars, including our Sun; most of the some 120 offerings however are contributed short posters, so neophytes are on their own. The sections cover the global structure and evolution of the solar and stellar interiors, solar convection and variation in irradiance, the large-scale and small-scale structure of the Sun, astroseismology, and the solar atmosphere. Among the topics of invited papers are reducing helioseismic data, inversion methods, local properties of the Sun's seismic events, the seismology of the ZZ Ceti stars, new observations of pulsations of OB stars, and the new chromosphere. A synthesis and summary of the meeting concludes the collection. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Information collected by satellites recently sent by the USA, the European Space Agency, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Russia to monitor the Sun has changed our knowledge and understanding of the Sun, particularly its effect on Earth. This book presents these findings in a way that will be welcomed by amateur astronomers, students, educators and anyone interested in the Sun. Enhanced by many colour photographs, the book combines newly acquired scientific understanding with detailed descriptions of features visible on the Sun’s surface and in its atmosphere. In the past, observing the Sun has been left to academics with specialised instruments, since solar observation has been unsafe because of the risk of eye damage. This book explains how amateur astronomers can safely observe the various solar phenomena using special hydrogen-alpha telescopes that are not too expensive. Amateurs can now make a positive contribution to science by monitoring the Sun as professionals do. Amateurs can also access the solar images taken by satellites via the internet. This book helps readers interpret and understand what these images are showing about the Sun, including the latest 3D images. Solar observers will enjoy comparing their own solar telescope observations with those produced by space probes such as SDO, SOHO, Hinode and STEREO, and further enjoy learning about transits, eclipses, and space weather and how the Sun compares to other stars in the universe. The main purpose of this book is to present some of the fascinating solar phenomena in their full splendor to readers through a variety of illustrations, photographs and easy to understand text.p/p

This unique volume contains the proceedings of two "Non-Sleeping Universe" conferences: "Stars and the ISM" and "From Galaxies to the Horizon". The book provides an overview of recent developments in a variety of areas, covering a very wide range of spatial and temporal scales.

Table of contents

This book surveys our understanding of stars which change in brightness because they pulsate. Pulsating variable stars are keys to distance scales inside and beyond the Milky Way galaxy. They test our understanding not only of stellar pulsation theory but also of stellar structure and evolution theory. Moreover, pulsating stars are important probes of the formation and evolution of our own and neighboring galaxies. Our understanding of pulsating stars has greatly increased in recent years as large-scale surveys of pulsating stars in the Milky Way and other Local Group galaxies have provided a wealth of new observations and as space-based instruments have studied particular pulsating stars in unprecedented detail.

In its revised 2nd edition, this book examines current understanding of the relationship between sunspots and the Earth's climate. Opening with a brief historical review, the text moves on to scrutinize the various current hypotheses. The focus is on how information on the solar cycle and Earth's climate is gathered, and includes discussion of observations, methododology and the physics involved, with the necessary statistics and analysis also provided.

Provides the latest summary on the solar coronal heating enigma and magneto-seismology of the solar atmosphere, for solar physics researchers.