Courseware Development

The past couple of weeks, I have been very busy developing a pair of advanced astronomy courses, with much of the material on a college level. I have specifically developed two segments.

The first segment deals with stars, stellar formation and evolution, the main sequence, the end of life for a star, how elements are created through fusion and more. The course even goes into the evolution of galaxies, and back to the big bang.

The second segment hits a bit closer to home, dealing with solar system astronomy including the 8 planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, minor planets, the Kuiper belt, the Oort cloud, centaurs and the moons of the solar system.

Both courses are modelled on subject information obtained from various university level astronomy classes in their categories and are designed for those interested in learning more about astronomy on a next level approach. Both come with comprehensive final exams, as well as a well-developed course syllabus.

Both of these courses will begin in the Fall as they are extensive and will cover probably the better part of 12 weeks.

In addition, I have also tweaked up my beginner amateur astronomy course and will be offering this course free of charge to all new people to the hobby interested in learning more about what amateur astronomy is all about, covering topics like the motion in the night sky, some basic constellations and stars, solar system and deep sky objects, choosing and using a telescope as well as some very basic astrophotography. So far, I have a handful of people interested in taking this beginner class, which is a 7 hour class.