Star clusters are at the heart of astronomy, being key objects for our understanding of stellar evolution and galactic structure. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope and other modern equipment have revealed fascinating new facts about these galactic building blocks. This book provides two comprehensive and up-to-date, pedagogically designed reviews on star clusters by two well-known experts in the field. Bruce Carney presents our current knowledge of the relative and absolute ages of globular clusters and the chemical history of our Galaxy. Bill Harris addresses globular clusters in external galaxies and their use as tracers of galaxy formation and cosmic distance indicators. The book is written for graduate students as well as professionals in astronomy and astrophysics.

This book is very well suited as a textbook in astrophysics Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Inhalt
From the contents: Stellar Evolution in Globular Clusters: Fundamentals of Globular Cluster Stellar Evolution.- Unusual Features in the H-R Diagram.- RR Lyrae Variable Stars.- Stellar Populations.- Metallicities.- Elemental Abundance Ratios I and II.- Relative Ages of Globular Clusters.- Absolute Ages of Globular Clusters.- Globular Cluster Systems: The Milky Way System: A Global Perspective.- The Distance Scale.- The Milky Way System: Kinematics.- The Milky Way System: Dynamics and Halo Mass Profile.- The Milky Way System: The Luminosity Function and Mass Distribution.- An Overview of Other Galaxies: Basic Parameters.- The GCLF and the Hubble Constant.- Globular Cluster Formation: In Situ Models.- Formation: Mergers, Accretions, and Starbursts.- Appendix: An Introduction to Photometric Measurement.