Free online astronomy course

[anthonyc1 (Anthony)]

Originally Posted by mswhin63

A great place to learn is:

A little explanation - http://www.khanacademy.org/

but my favourite is - http://patrickjmt.com/

Yep they are good ones. Khan Academy is where I learnt all my Algebra (and many other things also)

[bazaud (Barry)]

The fun has begun.

Barry

[TechnoViking (James)]

I watched all the lectures last night and have realised that after almost 20 years of leaving school, "Cramming" doesnt work anymore .


Im glad we get 20 attempts, i didnt know how horrible my algebra was untill i started this, i was living in the hopes that algebra was still active in my brain.. lol

[malclocke (Malc)]

I watched the lectures last night, and completed the homework tonight. The lectures were interesting, but didn't really cover much new for me.

I was surprised how hard the homework was though, took some working out!

Looking forward to the rest of the course, and I quite like the tutors style, particularly his 'fuzzy head lunar eclipse'

[bazaud (Barry)]

Just starting the homework now, your right first question wasn't covered in the videos. I did enjoy the videos, like the way he presents.

[Shamrocker (Aidan)]

Spent a few hours trying to figure out what was wrong with my answer to question 2, and eventually realised it was because I had included a comma.



I quite enjoyed week 1. Definitely filled in a few blanks for me.

[DarthWombat (Alex)]

G'day all...

I watched the lectures yesterday and knocked over the homework today a few hours before the deadline. My partner said: "Good to know your study habits haven't changed".

I found the first week's questions tricky rather than out-and-out hard (mathematically speaking) - I was just glad they weren't timed. I printed them out and worked them through on paper before going back and filling in the answers. I made lots of scribbly diagrams which really helped.

The second-last question in part B took me a while to think through - it tied together a bunch of stuff from across a few lectures. Being able to replay the lectures was a huge bonus - I wish I could have done that when I was at Uni.

Anyway, I'm happy with how it's shaping up so far.

Hooroo,

Alex

[bazaud (Barry)]

Originally Posted by DarthWombat

G'day all...

I watched the lectures yesterday and knocked over the homework today a few hours before the deadline. My partner said: "Good to know your study habits haven't changed".

I found the first week's questions tricky rather than out-and-out hard (mathematically speaking) - I was just glad they weren't timed. I printed them out and worked them through on paper before going back and filling in the answers. I made lots of scribbly diagrams which really helped.

The second-last question in part B took me a while to think through - it tied together a bunch of stuff from across a few lectures. Being able to replay the lectures was a huge bonus - I wish I could have done that when I was at Uni.

Anyway, I'm happy with how it's shaping up so far.

Hooroo,

Alex

I'm hoping I read it right, don't we have about 2 day before deadline?

Barry

[Peteren (Peter)]

I’m stumped on question 4 in part B, anyone got a calculation for it ?

Got it, put in the wrong values

[DarthWombat (Alex)]

Originally Posted by bazaud

I'm hoping I read it right, don't we have about 2 day before deadline?

Barry

Yep - I just saw Monday and knew that I wouldn't be doing anything once I got back to work.

The deadline is actually 12:00pm Monday EST (-5:00), so I make that something like 4:00am AEST (+11:00). Is that right?

[bazaud (Barry)]

I get 8pm Tuesday. LOL


I'm not working tomorrow so I'll get stuck into it in the morning.

Barry

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Finally got stuck into the course, it's been a bummer of a week, funerals and Xmas socials all mixed up. Hopefully I can finish the rest of the vids (4) today\this evening and do the homework. Gawd, I haven't done homework for yonks !!

[LAW (Murphy)]

I should have taken better notes

I have to admit I'm struggling a bit, trying to remember my highschool maths while applying it to these new concepts of RA and DEC. I know what RA and DEC are, but I've never thought of using them to predict times and lattitudes before.

I'm really enjoying it though, I haven't studied for years and this sort of workout is exactly what my idle brain needed.

Good luck everyone!

[EDIT] Turns out I wasn't strugglign anywhere near as much as I thought, my troubles were calculator related (more specifically finger related).

I've got all green ticks for the homework but it's not showing my score...?

[scagman (John)]

I have to learn how to study. I never did much studing at school. After triing to work out q1 &q2 and getting wrong answers no matter how I tried to work it out, I was about to throw in the towel and just go back to watching TV(much easier), I sat down last night and worked thru them again, this time READING/UNDERSTANDING the questions a bit better, I actually got them right..

Bring on week 2.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Completed my last two modules last night (phew!) then got stuck into the homework. My maths is NOT what it used to be but got through most of it. Was too tired to go back and fix too much ( finished after 11pm) so I'll have to wear the consequences on that one but I'll also take more notes for the rest.
Good point, the ability to go back and watch the vid again. I'm downloading them as I go for future reference\refresh. Hopefully as more learning is done my understanding will improve.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

For those Ozzies and Kiwis confused by the assignment due time, for week 2 "Dec 10 2012 12:00 EST" is:

2012/12/11 01:00 AWST Australia/Perth Australia/West
2012/12/11 01:45 ACWST Australia/Eucla
2012/12/11 02:30 ACST Australia/Darwin Australia/North
2012/12/11 03:00 AEST Australia/Brisbane Australia/Lindeman Australia/Queensland
2012/12/11 03:30 ACSDT Australia/Adelaide Australia/Broken_Hill Australia/South Australia/Yancowinna
2012/12/11 04:00 AESDT Australia/ACT Australia/Canberra Australia/Currie Australia/Hobart Australia/Melbourne Australia/NSW Australia/Sydney Australia/Tasmania Australia/Victoria
2012/12/11 04:00 LHSDT Australia/LHI Australia/Lord_Howe
2012/12/11 06:00 NZDT Antarctica/McMurdo Antarctica/South_Pole NZ Pacific/Auckland
2012/12/11 06:45 CHADT NZ-CHAT Pacific/Chatham

Don't you just love the number of and different names time zones go by.

[bazaud (Barry)]

Thanks Andrew

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

My bad. I thought they'd change the time. It looks like they've changed the display so it now appears in your local time.

"Dec 10 2012 12:00 EST" is US time is "Dec 11 2012 04:00 AESDT"

Confusion caused by the EST zone code being misused for Australia.

Can someone not using AEST set the time offset in their profile and see what time it says assignments are due?

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Also you no longer get an instant feedback whether you are right or wrong. That's the end of the 'guessing game'.
I'm struggling with the maths bigtime. After 50+ years without algebra it's going to be my downfall I suspect. That and finding time. Whatever happens I'm going to carry on with the course, my results may be abysmal but there is still a lot to be learned and who needs a certificate anyway, especially at my age !!

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by ZeroID

Also you no longer get an instant feedback whether you are right or wrong. That's the end of the 'guessing game'.
I'm struggling with the maths bigtime. After 50+ years without algebra it's going to be my downfall I suspect. That and finding time. Whatever happens I'm going to carry on with the course, my results may be abysmal but there is still a lot to be learned and who needs a certificate anyway, especially at my age !!

I totally understand time-wise, with 2 teenage kids to deal with it was a difficult challenge. Although Maths is all about study time and not so much about the practicality of algebra use. After starting calculus last 2 semesters algebra is almost second hat. I have never had to use Algebra much over the years as well until now