These PowerPoints are designed for presentation and discussion but can be used for independent learning. They are ordered in a suitable learning sequence, more basic ones near the top, more advanced ones further down.

Many of thePowerPoints contain concepts related to sciences other than astronomy. The relevance of each Powerpoint to these other areas is shown by the Xs.

Download the files and open them in PowerPoint so that they render properly.

Random Facts about the Universe

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Black Holes

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Space is Big

What the Universe is made of

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The Night Sky

The Solar System

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The Moon

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Mercury

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Venus

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Mars

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Jupiter

Saturn

Uranus

Pluto

The Sun

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Eclipses

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Space Exploration

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Things that hit the Earth

Telescopes

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History of Astronomy

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Astrology

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4 percent of the Universe

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96 percent of the Universe

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Lives and Deaths of Stars

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Atoms to Dust to Planets

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Galaxies

Inter-stellar Medium

Atmospheres

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History and Future of the Universe

History of the Earth

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Geology of the Earth

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Orbits

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Comets and Meteor Showers

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Position in the Sky

Life

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Exoplanets and Extra-terrestrial Life

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Energy

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Sub-atomic Particles

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Quantum Theory

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Atoms

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Special Relativity

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Gravity and General Relativity

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The Big Bang

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Cosmology

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Reality

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Why is there Something?

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Nucleosynthesis

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HR Diagrams

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Below is an astronomical tidbit. More can be found here.

Below is the beginning of an astronomical glossary. The whole document can be found here.

Below is the beginnings of a list of good free astronomical resources available on the Internet.

If anyone knows of others worth including, please feel free to let me know on d.ilsley@gmail.com

Software     Websites    YouTube     Facebook     Mailing Lists     Phone Aps

Software

Stellarium     Shows the sky in great detail at any given time and place as well as a lot of detail about the celestial objects shown. Probably the best free astronomy software.

Celestia     Allows you to travel through the universe looking at celestial objects. Controls are keyboard keys and mouse actions, so it takes a while to learn to drive it.

Websites

The Planets     Lots of basic information about the planets and other aspects of the solar system.

Space Place     NASA astronomy site for kids.

Ology - Astronomy for Kids     By the American Museum of Natural History. Contains games, stories, hands-on activities and videos.

NASA Missions     Details of all NASA's space missions.

Astronomy     Various astronomical articles along with stuff for sale.

BBC Sky at Night Magazine     Astronomy articles, along with some ads (astronomy-related).

Astronomy and Astrophysics Forum     Ask questions and get answers from other members.

Astronomy Online     A site containing links to numerous other astronomy sites.

PhET Gravity and Orbit Simulator     Simple online simulation of the the orbits of Sun, Earth and Moon, allowing the user to change initial velocities etc.

Brisbane Planetarium     Information about the planetarium, shows etc.

Scenic Rim Astronomy Association     Website of the Scenic Rim Astronomy Association, based at Laravale.

Brisbane Astronomical Society     Website of the Brisbane Astronomical Society, based at Coorparoo.

SEQAS     Website of the South East Queensland Astronomical Society, based at Bracken Ridge.

YouTube

PBS Space Time     (Channel) Clear and mostly reasonably simple accounts of astronomical ideas from Cosmology at the biggest scale right down to the subatomic. Presented by Matt O'Dowd, Australian astrophysicist.

Arvin Ash     (Channel) Fascinating aspects of physics and astronomy explained fairly simply.

Kurzgesagt     (Channel) Short snappy videos on a lot of topics. Click on the blue and green planet, then 'Playlists', then 'The Universe and Space Stuff' for the astronomical ones.

The Entire History of the Universe     (Channel) A series of 10 videos (around 30-45 minutes each) covering the most important issues of the history of the universe in a thorough and professional way.

ScienceClic English     (Channel) Videos which present difficult ideas like the curvature of space time and quantum field theory in ways that are accessible to people without a lot of maths/science background.

Domain of Science     (Channel) Videos which give summaries of various topics in physics, astronomy and other sciences.

Physics     (Channel) Videos which give quite mathematical explanations of advanced ideas like wave functions and Einstein's field equations. Many involve a senior high school to first year university maths, though they can be partly understood without.

NASA     (Channel) Videos focusing on NASA's work in space exploration.

Hubble Space Telescope     (Channel) Information about the telescope and some of its classic images.

Space and Astronomy     (Channel) Numerous videos (somewhat dramatic) on popular spects of astronomy - the planets, meteoroid impacts, aliens, the future of humanity etc.

John Michael Godier     (Channel) Numerous videos on popular spects of astronomy with emphasis on extra-terrestrial life.

Deep Sky Videos     (Channel) Numerous videos, each discussing one galaxy (deep sky object) and its particular interesting features.

CrashCourse     (Channel) Educational videos on many subjects. There is a set of 48 on astronomy covering a wide range of topics in an informative way.

Cosmoknowledge     (Channel) A collection of videos about unusual and extreme things in the cosmos. Not always totally accurate, but informative and fascinating.

Facebook

Universe Today     News posts about astronomy and space exploration.

Astronomy Magazine     Interesting astronomical snippets.

Starts with a Bang     Interesting astronomical snippets.

Sky & Telescope     Interesting astronomical snippets, focusing on observational astronomy.

Secrets of the Universe     Interesting astronomical articles.

Mailing Lists

Universe Today (info@universetoday.com)     A weekly newsletter from Fraser Cain containing latest news about astronomy and space exploration.

Phone Aps

Sky Map     Hold the phone up and the ap shows the stars, planets etc. that are in the sky behind it.

I used to run a school astronomy club called 'The Dark Side'. Astronomy fascinates many kids. We met after school on Fridays and had over a hundred members. One of the students made this slideshow of the club.

Slideshow

I produced a website for the club. A copy of this can be accessed via the button below or via the link at the top of this page.

The Dark Side

In case anyone else is running an astronomy club and would like to set up a similar website, I've included another copy as an 'Annotated Template'. The annotations point out how to modify the template to suit one's own club. This template can be accessed via the button below or via the link at the top of this page. This and the linked files can be downloaded from this site. Copyright is creative commons (see here), so just include an acknowledgement and a link on the site to m1astronomy.com.

The Annotated Template contains instructions for downloading question sets and other materials for the quiz games.

Annotated Template

Modifying the template will require some familiarity with basic html. For anyone who doesn't have that familiarity, I would be happy to make the necessary modifications if given instructions. Click this button for contact details. This is something I enjoy doing and would not charge for.

Contact

For anyone who has a web hosting service, the modified site can be posted on their host. For anyone who doesn't, I can post it on this site with a link from the top of this page. If posted on M1Astronomy, updates could be done in a couple of ways. For those familiar with html, I could provide an FTP account to allow a club organiser to make changes. For those without that familiarity, requests for changes could be sent to me and I will carry them out.

There is a Facebook page associated with this site. Anyone is welcome to join.
People post fairly regular items about recent developments in astronomy.

M1Astronomy

This site is produced and maintained by David Ilsley.

The email address is: d.ilsley@gmail.com

Feel free to make contact if you have any questions or suggestions.

This site, m1astronomy.com is produced and maintained by David Ilsley. It is copyrighted under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License CC BY-NC 4.0. This allows the materials to be printed, copied, adapted and stored locally. It also allows them to be re-published for non-commercial purposes as long as clear attribution is made to m1astronomy.com.

Images and music from other sources are used here, but these are all copyright free and their sources are acknowledged.

David Ilsley, who maintains this astronomy site, also has a free site, M1Maths, designed to help with high-school maths. Here is a bit of a plug.

M1Maths (m1maths.com) is a set of materials for learning maths from about Year 5 to Year 12. There is a module for each topic. The modules contain easy-to-follow explanations of the topic and practice exercises.

The materials can be used by students if they haven't quite grasped a topic or need to revise it, or if they miss lessons or wish to go ahead and get a feel for a new topic before meeting it in class. They can also be used by parents who wish to help their children with their maths.

The site is totally free with no login, no cookies and no ads.

Go to M1Maths

This is David Ilsley's home site with links to his other websites.

Go to DavidIlsley.com

Image Acknowledgements

Telescopes: rawpixel.com (cropped)       Horsehead Nebula: wallpaperuse.com (cropped)       Kids on phone: Max Fischer on Pexels (cropped)       Cosmic Cliffs: rawpixel.com (cropped)
Eagle Nebula: pxfuel.com (cropped)       Yoda image: pixabay.com       Background in M1Maths and DavidIlsley.com screenshots: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/beach-background-sea-ocean-3892386/ (cropped) (Creative Commons licence)       Student in M1Maths screenshot: flickr.com (cropped)