INTRODUCTION TO ASTRONOMY

Many of us have gazed up to the night sky in wonder. In particular in winter, when the sky is dark, the dim glow of the Milky Way is high up in the sky, the skies in our southern hemisphere are a sight to behold. But what lies beneath? How does all this beauty actually work? What do the pretty pictures we see on websites actually tell us? And how do we know? In this five-week course, we will focus on how astronomers learn about the universe. We will dive into the (usually) happy marriage between observations and theory, and how they both challenge and support one another. What have we learned from centuries of astronomy, what are scientists still trying to unravel, and what are the next steps?

Erik studied astronomy in the Netherlands in the 1990s and later completed a PhD focused on astronomy education. He has worked with observatories and telescopes in Chile, the USA, Australia and New Zealand, and is passionate about helping people understand not just the beauty of astronomy, but how we learn about the universe.