Stellar Astrophysics for the Local Group: VIII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics (Cambridge Contemporary Astrophysics)

With the recent advent of large, ground-based telescopes and space telescopes, it is now possible to study in detail stars outside our galaxy--in neighboring galaxies in the so-called Local Group. The VIII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics gathered leading experts from around the world to review this exciting new area of research--extragalactic stellar astrophysics. This volume presents eight specially written articles based on the meeting, reviewing how the study of stars in nearby galaxies can be used to understand stellar and galactic structure and evolution in general. This book covers all aspects of extragalactic stellar astrophysics: stellar physics, stellar winds, stellar evolution, the use of photometric and spectroscopic techniques for studying extragalactic stars, stellar populations, chemical evolution, star formation histories and the calibration of the extragalactic distance scale. It provides graduate students and researchers with an invaluable introduction to and reference on the new subject of extragalactic stellar astrophysics.