Does your child love astronomy, NASA or all things space? This course gives kids the opportunity to experience controlling a professional observatory telescope via remote control, just like a real astronomer! Most astronomers don't live on-site at the observatories, but instead observe and control the telescope from a distance via special tools. Through a partnership with educational telescope provider Slooh, this course teaches students how to use observatory telescopes located in the Canary Islands and Chile for hands-on astronomy studies!  

We'll delve into a wide variety of astronomy topics in the course, exploring our solar system and universe together as a class. Students will also have the opportunity to take their own photos and to create a high-quality poster with their images. 

Recommended course materials: $30/year Student Subscription to Slooh remote telescope services to use during the course. A link to sign-up at the discounted student rate ($30 for a year) will be emailed upon registration. 
Note: If your learner is not interested in capturing their own telescope images, it is also possible to take this course to learn about Astronomy, without using a Slooh telescope account.

We automatically post the Class Recording after each class meeting. Each class session is a standalone topic, so if students miss a class, they can always rejoin the following week. 

Teacher Expertise: This course is taught by Quantum Physics for Kids instructors Prof. Mark Baraket (M.S. Astrophysics UC Berkeley), an experienced astronomy and astrophysics educator, and Prof. Sunny Satpathy (Masters in Design Engineering, Brown University/Rhode Island School of Design), an experienced STEM educator and curriculum developer. 

Over 12 weekly sessions, we'll cover the following astronomy topics:
Session 1: Introduction to using Slooh observatory tools and navigating the software; initial observations
Session 2: Constellations
Session 3: Our Sun
Session 4: Our Moon
Session 5: Distances of space objects - Solar System, Milky Way and Deep Space
Session 6: Distant Stars
Session 7: Planets in Our Solar System
Session 8: Far Planets
Session 9: Milky Way Galaxy
Session 10: Star Clusters
Session 11: Nebulae
Session 12: Types of Galaxies