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There's an awful lot a person has to learn in order to become a professional astronomer. No need to wait for the start of a formal course in order to start studying!
Plenty of good books around, for instance I have reviewed (at amazon.com), nearly all of the available textbooks on galaxies at the undergraduate to graduate level.
(just search on google for: "Amazon.com: profile for R.A. Lang")
I also reviewed two high-level introductory books about star formation, and I also reviewed a more physically-oriented Star Formation textbook suitable for undergraduates and graduates.
"An Introduction to Radio Astronomy" (3rd Edition), by Bernard Burke and Francis Graham-Smith, is an excellent textbook, with very clear explanations about radio telescopes and important facts such as the different types of emission mechanisms from objects. It also covers the ISM, pulsars, radio galaxies, etc., with fairly simple physics and maths.
I also reviewed a number of high-level, but remarkably easily understandable, texts on stellar evolution and the concept of Stellar Populations.
I can also recommend some basic books on stellar evolution, which is one of the critical building blocks of astronomical knowledge.
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