astronomy courses

[iwagland]

I am looking at doing an astromony course either by class work or by correspondence. I live in Melbourne and have an intermediate knowledge of Astronomy.

Tim

[Quark]

Hi Tim,

I would highly recommend Swinburne Universities Astronomy Online offerings.

They have an Astronomy short course and also offer, Graduate Certificate of Science in Astronomy, Graduate Diploma of Science in Astronomy, Master of Science in Astronomy and there are Phd places available.

Swinburne is the only Australian University with a time allocation on the Keck Telescopes. They have an excellent range of units available and from personal experience I can say they are very supportive and I found the units that I did most stimulating and thoroughly enjoyable.

Drop in and see Dr Sarah Maddison at Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Super Computing at their Hawthorn campus, Sarah is an Astrophysicist and runs the SAO courses.

Regards
Trevor

[Terry B]

AFAIK there are 2 places offering on line astronomy courses in Australia. Swinburn uni as mentioned above and James Cook Uni at http://www.jcu.edu.au/school/mathphys/astronomy/
Take a look at both of them.

[iwagland]

Thank you both for the information.

I will follow up on both courses.

Best regards
Tim

[dpastern]

I presume that these courses are quite pricey? Are they maths heavy?

Dave

[renormalised]

The course I do (MSc in Astronomy) at JCU costs me a bit over $2500 per semester, but I get help to pay that. I think the Swinburne course is about the same. As far as being maths heavy, it depends on the subject you're doing at the time, but you can expect a reasonable dose of maths in all the subjects. However, if you don't want to do the masters course, you can do a graduate certificate or graduate diploma in Astronomy. In all cases though, you need to have a previous degree in a physical science to do the courses (or approval of the Dean for others), or a BEd for the Astronomy Education higher degree (both Masters and PhD).

[Quark]

Not sure about JCU but at Swinburne they offer 16 astronomy units, There is no specific stream for Grad Cert, Grad Dip or Msc. However there are prerequisite units that you must have already completed to enroll in some particular units.

Regardless of the units you choose, it is almost certain that there will be other student enrolled in them that are part way through their Grad Cert, Grad Dip or Msc, there most definitely is not a separate set of units for each stream.

I found that to be a most stimulating experience because you are communicating with other students at quite different stages as they progress toward whichever degree they are enrolled in.

I have attached a link to the Swinburne units.
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/sao/students/units.xml

If you are interested then it may pay to have a look on Swinburne's site at the thesis titles for the current PhD students, also there is a listing for what Swinburne graduates are now doing, which is interesting.

I have personal experience at Swinburne and I recommend their courses, just as I am sure Renormalized can inform you about the regime at JCU, as he has experience with it. IIS has a broad spectrum of members with experience in astro education so I am sure you will get some good advice from other IIS'ers.

Regards
Trevor

[dpastern]

These pre-requesites would kill any interest in it for me. I'm OK with maths, in fact, I quite like maths, but I doubt that I would be good enough for the high end math content to be honest.

Thanks for the answers though.

Dave

[renormalised]

Actually it's not that onerous.....you'd have no trouble doing it if you can handle algebra, calculus and can add 1+1:D (isn't that 11??:P:D)

[dpastern]

Yes, that's true, but doing the 'pre-requisites' sounds onerous and messy. It's been 20 something years since I did algebra and calculas, and most of it is forgotten.

Plus, the course are more in depth than I thought they'd be. I doubt I could juggle them, and full time work plus travel to be honest. I work a 45+ hour week, and then spend 15-20 hours per week travelling. It doesn't leave me a lot of "free time" to myself. Busting my gut studying and working for X amount of time, for what is in reality, a hobby, isn't worth it. Add to the fact the cost, and that I'd probably not get anything out of doing such a course anyways. I was more curious about it all, than super serious.

Dave

[Terry B]

I did my masters at UWS. It was the precursor to the JCU course. My "prerequisite" was a medical degree. Certainly a science but hardly maths based. I didn't find the maths a problem.

[Quark]

Hi David,

It sounds like you have misunderstood my comments about some units having pre-requisites.

Again I cannot comment on institutions other than Swinburne, where to enroll in some particular units you must first have completed another unit that relates to it. I am referring to the 16 available units that Swinburne offer and not to anything else. All of this info can be accessed from the link I provided in an earlier post to this thread.

Regards
Trevor

[dpastern]

I'll check the link out and feel things out. Is there much on stellar evolution in the Swinbourne course, cos that's the area that most interests me.

Dave

[Quark]

Hi Dave,

It is all laid out on the site I have provided the link to.
The unit HET 603 covers stellar evolution in detail, go to the site and read the summary for this and the other units.

Regards
Trevor

[Jeff]

My approach was to purchase all of the books on the Swinburne Astronomy booklist, then read them progressively over about 18 months. Has worked for me, having a technical background and lots of curiosity .... but full-time work commitments.

Booklist attached.

Cheers,
Jeff