Babylon to the Big Bang

Talks on the Statendam: Xmas 2014

1. THe Birth of Astronomy
2. The Death of Astrology
3. Farewell to Earth
4. Death of the Dinosaurs
5. Star of Wonder, Star of Light
6. The Birth and Death of Stars
7. Galaxies and Beyond
8. Physics as A creation Myth

Some Sources:

• NASA
• European Space Observatory (ESO)
• Tunc Tezel
• Anthony Ayiomitas
• Cassini fly-through of Saturn, assembled by Stephen van Vuuren
• Scales of things

Software

• Voyager 4.5 (Carina Soft) My preference
• Starry Night
• Red Shift (available for Ipad)

• Freebies

• stellarium
• Celestia
• Planets: Dana Peters , Downloadable from the App. Store

Books

• Astronomy Today
• Books by Pasachoff are usually good.
• Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries. Neil deGrasse Tyson

Print Journals

• New Scientist: always interesting, usually provocative sometimes wrong!
• Scientific American: usually good, a bit pompous at times
• Astronomy
• Sky And Telescope

Other links:

• Viewing conditions: it's quite hard to decide in advance if you are going to see anything in the sky. The cleardarksky website helps a lot.
• It's possible to predict aurora, based on the "space weather" reports
• Young's "Textbook of Astronomy for Colleges and Scientific Schools" (from Project Gutenberg