About these Pages

This small collection of talks has been assembled to help both tutors and learners. Essentially, these notes are the distillation of countless introductory sessions I've delivered many, many times over the past fifteen years. They cover the basics - how to get started, what to look for, how to work out what to look at next.

Tutors may find them useful when approaching their first astronomy classes.

Learners may find them helpful when embarking on their first steps into the field of astronomy.

The guidelines I've used whilst assembling this collection are as follows:

Use as little complex jargon as possible
Use as little mathematics as possible
Provide plenty of suggestions for further study
Help to manage the Learner's expectations
Remember to have fun

Additional Notes

I've included compressed PDF versions of the presentation material. However, the compression algorithm degrades the image quality to the point that they're not much good. I'm looking at ways to share the full Powerpoint presentations, probably via a Google Drive page. Some of my presentations are large - upwards of 150 Mb - and WEA doesn't have the storage space for the full versions.
All of the images I've used are in the public domain with the exception of the graphics I've contributed myself. Technically, they belong to WEA but, as far as I'm concerned, feel free to use them without any copyright issues.

David Hughes, FRAS

WEA / RAS 200 Coordinator

December 31st 2020