Lecture Schedule

#	Title	OpenStax Astronomy 2e Reading	Paired Lab/PS
01	The Equations of Stellar Structure: Mass, Momentum, and What Remains	Ch. 16.1–16.2	Lab 01 / PS 01
02	Equation of State and Opacity: What a Photon Fights Against	Not in OpenStax; derived from first principles
03	Radiative Energy Transport: How Heat Actually Gets Out	Ch. 16.2 (extends beyond OpenStax)	Lab 02 / PS 02
04	Convection and the Schwarzschild Criterion	Ch. 16.2 (extends beyond OpenStax)
05	Nuclear Reactions I: The Proton-Proton Chain and the Gamow Peak	Ch. 16.3	Lab 03 / PS 03
06	Nuclear Reactions II: The CNO Cycle and Why Massive Stars Burn So Differently	Ch. 16.3
07	The Mass-Luminosity Relation and Main-Sequence Lifetimes	Ch. 19.3	Lab 04 / PS 04
08	Stellar Models: Polytropes and Homology Relations	Not in OpenStax; derived from first principles
09	Post-Main-Sequence Evolution: Shell Burning and the Red Giant Branch	Ch. 21.1–21.2	Lab 05 / PS 05
10	Helium Burning: The Triple-Alpha Process and the Horizontal Branch	Ch. 21.3
11	Late Stages of Low- and Intermediate-Mass Stars: AGB, Planetary Nebulae, and White Dwarf Formation	Ch. 21.4–21.5	Lab 06 / PS 06
12	Electron Degeneracy and the Chandrasekhar Mass	Ch. 22.1–22.2
13	Massive Star Evolution and the Core-Collapse Supernova Mechanism	Ch. 22.3–22.5	Lab 07 / PS 07
14	Synthesis: Nucleosynthesis and Compact Remnants Across This Course	Ch. 22, Ch. 23 (read together)

Lab Schedule

Lab	Title	Real Data Source
01	Building a Two-Zone Model of the Sun: Equation of State, Opacity, and Hydrostatic Pressure	Standard solar-model core density, temperature, and central pressure (published, flagged for spot-check)
02	Radiative vs. Convective Energy Transport in the Solar Envelope	Standard published solar-envelope temperature/pressure/density sample points
03	The Gamow Peak and the pp-Chain/CNO-Cycle Crossover Temperature	Standard solar-model core temperature; Sirius A mass and spectral type (carried forward from ASTR 230/ASTR 310)
04	Mass-Luminosity Relation and Main-Sequence Lifetimes for Real Stars	Alpha Centauri A/B and Sirius A measured masses and luminosities (carried forward, live-verified in ASTR 230/ASTR 310)
05	Dating the Hyades Open Cluster from Its Main-Sequence Turnoff	Hyades cluster distance, age, turnoff mass, and structural radii (live-verified this session)
06	Sirius B and the Chandrasekhar Mass	Sirius B measured mass, radius, and temperature (live-verified in ASTR 230, carried forward)
07	Capstone: PSR J0348+0432 and the Physics of Core Collapse	PSR J0348+0432 neutron star and white dwarf masses and orbital parameters (live-verified this session)