Learn the basics of astronomy. Explore a variety of topics including: learning to navigate the night sky; zenith versus celestial north; the celestial coordinates; why we don’t have an eclipse every month; planets; the 5 degree tilt; and measurements of time. The course will describe the basic mechanics of our earth-moon system; the solar system and then the galaxy and beyond. Our instructor will also suggest some simple experiments you can try from your own yard as you become more knowledgeable about the night sky as well as simple methods of astrophotography (photographing the night-time sky) using just a camera mounted on a tripod.

See Resources in Astronomy: https://pbase.com/wjshaheen/resources_in_astronomy

Planets and Stars to Scale - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1w8hKTJ2Co&NR=1

Copernicus and Retrograde motion - http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/retrograde/copernican.html

Demos - http://projects.astro.illinois.edu/data/