Table of Contents

1. Spherical Astronomy. 2. First Notions on Astronomical Reference Systems. 3. Transformations of Coordinates. 4. First Notions on the Movements of the Earth and the Astronomical Times. 5. The Movements of the Fundamental Planes. 6.Dynamics of Earth’s Rotation 7. Aberration of Light. 8. The Parallax. 9. Radial Velocities and Proper Motions. 10.The Astronomical Times the Atomic Time and the Earth Rotation Angle. 11.The Terrestrial Atmosphere. 12. The Two-Body Problem. 13. Orbital Elements and Ephemerides. 14. Elements of Perturbation Theories. 15. Eclipses, Occultations and Transits. 16. Elements of Astronomical Photometry. 17. Elements of Astronomical Spectroscopy.

About the Author

Cesare Barbieri is Professor Emeritus of astronomy at the University of Padova, Italy. He directed the Astronomical Observatory of Padova and the construction of the 3.5 m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (Canary Islands). He held several positions in the European Space Agency and European Southern Observatory advisory committees, with an active role in several space missions (the Halley Multicolour Camera on board GIOTTO to comet Halley, the Faint Object Camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, the imaging system OSIRIS on board ROSETTA to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko).

Ivano Bertini is Senior Researcher of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Parthenope University of Naples, Italy, and associate scientist at the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology-INAF, Rome, Italy. He also worked at the Physikalisches Institut of the University of Bern (Switzerland), at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Granada (Spain), at the European Space Astronomy Centre of the European Space Agency in Madrid (Spain), and at the University of Padua (Italy). He has an active role in several space missions (the imaging system OSIRIS and the dust-collector instrument GIADA on board ROSETTA to comet Churyumov-Gersimenko, several instruments on board ESA Comet Interceptor and ASI LICIACube.