Astronomy
Davidson, N 1993, Sky Phenomena: A guide to naked-eye observation of the stars, Lindisfarne Press, New York.
Ellyard, D 2001,Sky Watch: A Guide to the Southern Skies, ABC Books, Sydney.
Freedman, RA & Kaufmann, WJ 2002, Universe, 6th edn, CD incl, WH Freeman and Company, New York.
Wyatt, P 1996, Astronomy for the Southern Hemisphere, CSIRO Series, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne.
It is recommended that teachers should view any video before purchase.
Marcom Projects: How Telescopes Work
This Word document, Astronomy Resources is a list of books and lab resources and websites that may be of use in implementing the Astronomy and Astrophysics Detailed Studies in the new curriculum.
A Word document, Altitude Finder on how to construct a very rudimentary altitude finder using an old CD. 33kB
Moon Clock: An instrument to tell time by the Moon with lesson plans, but for the Northern hemisphere. A Southern Hemisphere version of the clock has been prepared by Dr Susan Feteris of Monash University: Top section Middle and bottom sections.
Assorted resources: Mars Activities from NASA: 131 page pdf file; An Activity on Retrograde motion; Sun Activities
Lesson plans on the Sun and Sun spots
Excursions for VCE Physics to Victorian Space Science Education Centre at Strathmore SC and to Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing which offers a virtual 3D tour.
Astronomical Society of Victoria
Australia National Telescope Facility (ATNF): website for students and teachers
Faulkes Telescope Project
Heavens Above website
Hubble Telescope website No 1
Hubble Telescope website No 2
Melbourne University astrophysics
Victorian Space Science Centre
Life history of a star. Very nice links with text and photos of real things. I like this one very much.
Astronomy in the deep freeze. Infra red astro in the Antarctic. Astro in different parts of the spectrum.
Hyperphysics. An encyclopedia of physics including a section on Astro and relativity. Very useable, simple and complete.
Hubble site No 3
On-line course in first year Astro. Very pretty, very sensible, very well organised.
Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Up to date pics of great things eg the most distant objects etc.
Applets from Demos and Animations for Teaching Astronomy
Sky Globe A 606 kB zip file. A free astronomy sky program providing a view of the sky from anywhere at any time. It enables fast forward to show the motion of the planets and stars over any time period. This version opens up with the view from Melbourne. Although originally shareware the originators seem to have vanished so it is effectively free. Unfortunately there is an intermittent error that occurs on opening. If this occurs close the program and try again, it should open after a few tries. If you know how to fix the problem send us an email.
Mercury Motion a zip file which simulates the conjunctions of Mercury and why they are not regular. 14kB
Applet on Retrograde motion
PowerPoint from Paul's presentation at the 2008 Physics Teachers Conference. (3.1MB)
Video of Total eclipse Oct 77 (5.5MB)
Tif image of a projection of the earth so that it can be cut out and pasted on a tennis ball. (25 MB)
Tif image of an altitude and aximuth grid on which to plot stars of the southern sky. (1.3 MB)
Tif image of an altitude and aximuth grid on which to plot stars of the northern sky. (1.3 MB)
Introductory questions (950 kB)
Video of partial eclipse (2.6MB)
Video of eclipse in Feb 08 (4.7 MB)
Cover page for activities booklet. (Word: 140 kB)
List of web links and resources, including references to articles in teacher periodicals and the words to the Python's "The Galaxy Song". (Word: 134kB)
Link to a set of applets compiled by Helmer Aslaksen at the National University of Singapore.
Using an Astrowatch: Explanatory document (1.7MB), template (jpg 2.2MB), day watch (tif), night watch (tif).
Moon observation experiment: Explanatory document (700 kB), 3D image of moon (jpg 49 kB), moon phase diagram (jpg 19kB).
Sidereal day experiment: Explanatory document (2.2 MB), Construction of a sidereal day scope (2.2 MB), tiff image for day scope, 2nd tiff image for day scope.
Using Star trails: explanatory document (200kB), tif image of a star trail (5.0 MB), star map of Northern sky, star map of Southern sky.
Sun observation experiments: explanatory document (625 kB), Paper to record shadow path (57 kB), PowerPoint on local latitude (332 kB), tiff image of shadow path (1.6 MB), tiff image of sample results (7.3 MB), jpg image of sample results (219 kB), tiff image of shadow template (1.6 MB).
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