My mega grab-bag of astronomy resources for teachers, students, telescope beginners and space fans

My brother-in-law the teacher is starting an astronomy class at school and asked for some teaching resources.

I figured I'd collate a few good sources here, for any teachers or parents - or anyone else interested...and to bookmark some interests sites/podcasts for myself to boot!

A key way to impress your audience is to be right up to date with current happenings and discoveries. So let's start with some key podcasts, all also available via iTunes. I listen to more than 15 hours of podcasts a week while cycling etc - on the iPhone you can double the speed and surprisingly you learn to follow it. In fact, it can get so listening at normal speed is far too slow!

Many of these links are also on Twitter (where noted), so you can keep right up to the minute!

Astronomy podcasts:

In Australia there is the wonderful StarStuff, an independent project run by Stuart Gary but sponsored by the ABC, with the 30-minute podcasts at ABC. @abcstarstuff


Canberra's Steve Nerlich produces Cheap Astronomy, regular 10-minute shows of varying complexity.

Overseas, despite a truly ugly website, the fantastic Naked Scientists from UK's Cambridge University have a stack of brilliant podcasts on general, science, archaeology, earth sciences, oceans, Africa, great kitchen-friendly experiments, and the monthly 60-minute Naked Astronomy, steered by Ben Valsler.

Tony Darnell works in the Space Telescope Science Institute and as a hobby runs Deep Astronomy, with videos and podcasts generally about 10-minutes.

There are a stack of NASA video and audio podcasts. Of interest are the space telescope ones for Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra, plus This Week @ NASA, Universe, Earth...where to stop? You'll be amazed at how much NASA is doing - for an agency that altogether too many people think has shut up shop!

365 Days of Astronomy is a real mixed bag of 10-minute podcasts - one for every day of the year.
Teachers should start with four of the best called 'Wonders From Class' by Diane Turnshek from Carnegie Mellon Uni. Over four podcasts and with great passion, she describes how she engages and interests her students with the field of astronomy. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Some others for beginning viewing and then a bit more:
Common Q&As about telescope use - from RapidEye Observatory
8 Telescope Tips for Beginners - by Telescope Man
Buying your first telescope - Telescope Man again
Have a plan - by Ed Sunder of flinstonestargazing.com
How to be an armchair astronaut - From Riding With Robots - now there's a site to spend some time at!
Armchair astronauts exploring the solar system - by Doug Ellison of unmannedspaceflight.com @doug_ellison
Exploring space with your computer - a guide to computer simulation tools by Bruce Irving of JPL
Moving onto photographing what you see:
Introduction to astrophotography - by Adam Pender
Webcam astrophotography - by Alexander Hobson
Amateur astrophotography for beginners - by Richard Drumm
Astroimaging under light polluted skies - by Robert Vanderbei
Expanding further - into spectroscopy:
Basic spectroscopy for amateurs  and Part 2 - by Mark DeVito and Tom Field

And if you'd like to go a bit further, you can subscribe to an entire university astronomy course via podcast - all the learning but no horrible assignments or exams! I like that! Here's one in audio format from Ohio State Uni. There are other, including video. Check iTunes.

Observing podcasts:

The Sydney Observatory posts a monthly podcast summarising the night sky viewing for the month - great for Southern Hemisphere viewers and East Coast Australians in particular. They have the added benefit of a transcript so you can print and highlight the key bits as a night sky viewing plan. @sydneyobs

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab has a short monthly video podcast, plus there's a stack of related brain food on their site.

Observing with Webb - another USA podcast by Rod Webb, but many of the sights will be visible here, just in different locations.

Telescope Man - look for the monthly viewing summaries. No nonsense, best viewing tips, with catalogued numbers if you have a go-to scope, but based on Texas. Plenty of other good beginner podcasts too.

Non-podcast observing resources:

The Hayden Planetarium (part of the American Museum of Natural History and headed up by none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson @neiltyson) has a good monthly sky report. You can see a lot of what they discuss, but of course not all. You'll also find their 3D atlas to the Universe.

Slooh has several large telescopes around the world and you can view the feeds for free. They have guest speakers during events. @slooh

Heavens Above allows you to register and enter your location, then get schedules of when key objects will pass over your patch of the sky - from GPS satellites to the International Space Station. Find out why the brightness scale goes backwards, planet and comet locations, and more.

If you just want to focus on passes of manned vehicles like the ISS or Soyuz, then check the RSS subscription for your location at NASA Human Spaceflight.

Stellarium - a free public domain computer planetarium. Free-standing once installed with no need of web access, so you can switch to red mode and take your notebook computer out with you.

Celestia - another free planetarium. This one lets you explore off-planet, and even check out various space missions.

Eyes on the Solar System - NASA's mission tracking simulator. Go for a ride along with every NASA space mission past and present. A great way to piggy back onto the Mars Curiosity rover as she descends to Mars in August this year!



Non-podcast astronomy resources:

NASA's Breaking News is a good resource, and has a useful RSS feed - check out Google Reader for how to collate key websites simply via RSS feeds. @NASA

NASA also has a comprehensive education section, with specialist information for teachers at different levels, students and a kids club.

It's hard to go past Space.com for some of everything you want, and great RSS and Twitter feeds. They have a good shop too - from meteorites to kids' spacesuits, genuine gone-to-space memorabilia to clothing. I mean, you've got to look the part for your classes right? @spacedotcom

With broadband, giant televisions with network sockets and a high definition feed from NASA TV, there's never been a better time for live viewing rocket launches, spacewalks, and more. Keep an eye on the schedule for education shows too. Be warned though, spacewalks are REALLY long and slow-mo. Some younger viewers will have a short attention span for them.

The Square Kilometre Array is the project to build the world's biggest radio telescope - right here in Australia. Or in South Africa. We'll know the decision on which site in about a month. If we win it, it will be the biggest science project ever in our history. Good video clips explaining the project. Keep up to date through @BrianBoyleSKA

Bad Astronomy blogger Phil Plait sorts the facts from the nonsense. @BadAstronomer

The Space Tweep Society has great articles, photos and videos from spacefans on Twitter who travel the world to attend Tweetups - key space events like launches - and hang out with other fans who use Twitter to share their experiences with their followers. The travels to Russia are brilliantly recounted.

Registax allows you to stack multiple photos or frames from a video clip to produce a single sharp picture. Free!

Galaxy Zoo is a citizen science website that allows anyone to help the scientists categorise galaxies as seen by Hubble. There have been a number of people credited on scientific journals for the new wonders they discovered on Galaxy Zoo! And now on a spin-off you might find exoplanets...

Tweeps you should follow:

@NASAKepler - the search for exoplanets
@SpaceflightNow - space news up to the moment, from Florida
@Nightskyonline - Australian amateur astronomer, alerts to sights
@SpaceX - the future of manned missions
@MarsRovers - updates from Opportunity on Mars
@NASAWebbTelescp - the future of space telescopes, being built now
@twisst - alerts of ISS passes over your location
@Aussie_Starman - Mark Rigby, head of the Brisbane Planetarium
@NASAJuno - Juno is heading to Jupiter
@carolynporco - head of the Cassini mission around Saturn
@MarsCuriosity - the new rover on its way there now
@PULSEatParkes - high school students taking over The Dish at Parkes!

Apps:

Lastly, iPhone and iPad apps are simply brilliant for finding out exactly what you are looking at in the sky.
Star Walk - virtual planetarium, my favourite, free



Distant Suns - virtual planetarium, free
SkyOrb - virtual planetarium, free
Pocket Universe - first off the line with this whole virtual planetarium approach, and costs, but the free ones are giving it curry now.
3D Sun - know about and watch solar flares before anyone else, free
Cassini - find out what this probe is doing around Saturn, free
APOD - astronomy picture of the day - website and iPhone app, free
Exoplanet - the latest on every exoplanet discovered, free
NASA - their own app, and simple access to NASA TV - never miss another launch! Free
Mars Images - what it says on the box, free