Stellar Populations

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

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2. History of the Concept of Stellar Populations

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Report on the Progress in Stellar Evolution to 1950

      • Owen Gingerich

      Pages 3-20

   3. Walter Baade’s Discovery of the Two Stellar Populations

      • Donald E. Osterbrock

      Pages 21-30

   4. The Discovery of the Chemical Composition — Kinematics Connection in the 1950’s

      • Nancy Grace Roman

      Pages 31-38

   5. Stellar Evolution and the Population Concept After 1950; The Vatican Conference

      • A. Blaauw

      Pages 39-48

3. Globular Cluster Systems

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 49-49

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   2. The Galactic Globular Cluster System

      • James E. Hesser

      Pages 51-65

   3. The Stellar Population of a Typical Globular Cluster

      • F. Fusi Pecci, G. Clementini

      Pages 67-74

   4. Stars in the Galactic Halo

      • T. D. Kinman

      Pages 75-83

   5. Globular Cluster Systems in Other Galaxies

      • William E. Harris

      Pages 85-95

4. Open Clusters and the Galactic Disk

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 97-97

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   2. Evolution of the Galactic Halo and Disk

      • Gerard Gilmore

      Pages 99-107

   3. Age and Metallicity Distributions Among Galactic Disk Stars

      • P. E. Nissen

      Pages 109-117

   4. Early-Type Stars

      • K. C. Freeman

      Pages 119-127

   5. High Velocity Clouds in the Galaxy

      • Felix J. Lockman

      Pages 129-132

   6. Chemical Evolution of the Galactic Disk and Bulge

      • Rosemary F. G. Wyse

      Pages 133-149

5. Stellar Populations in Local Group Galaxies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 151-151

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   2. Stellar Populations in the Magellanic Clouds

      • M. W. Feast

      Pages 153-163

   3. M31 and Companions: A Key to Baade’s Stellar Populations then and Now

      • W. L. Freedman

      Pages 165-174

The concept of Stellar Populations has played a fundamental role in astronomy in the last few decades. It was introduced by Walter Baade after he was able to resolve the Andromeda Nebula and its companions into stars when he used red-sensitive plates and realised that there were two fundamentally different Herzsprung-Russell diagrams in our and these nearby galaxies (common stars in the solar neighborhood versus globular clusters). This result was published in two papers in 1944 in volume 100 of the Astrophysical Journal. Subsequent research gave the concept a much firmer basis and at the famous Vatican Symposium of 1957 resulted in a general scheme of the concept and a working hypothesis for idea's on the formation and evolution of the Galaxy. This has been a guiding principle of studies of our and other galaxies for decades. Some years ago it seemed to us appropriate to commemorate Baade's seminal work in 1994, when it would have its 50-th anniversary, and to review its present status and also its role in contempory understanding. While we were in Leiden for an administrative committee, we discussed the matter again and over beers on October 29, 1991 we decided the take the initiative for an IAU Symposium on the subject during the 1994 IAU General Assembly in Den Haag, the Netherlands.

• astronomy
• black hole
• dark matter
• galaxy
• milky way
• Population
• star
• star cluster
• stellar evolution

• Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

  P. C. Kruit

• Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, UK

  G. Gilmore

Policies and ethics