Like to take your astronomy interest to another level? How about some free online university courses through Coursera.org?

Are you interested in more than looking at the pretty space pictures? You can now take university-standard courses for free through www.coursera.org.

I'm in the middle of the Introduction to Astronomy course, run from Duke Iniversity in the USA. It is admittedly a pretty tough course—especially if you haven't done any algebra for 30-plus years like me! There is a lot of maths. Although there were originally some 65,000 people enrolled, and the maths load has taken a heavy toll on them, there are still more than 6500 people who've made it through the first three weeks. That's right—one lecturer, two assistants, 6500 students!

There are two more directly space-related course coming up in January, as well as an interesting sounding one called "Image and video processing: from Mars"! Anyone with a telescope knows it doesn't take long before you progress from looking at the night sky to wanting to photograph it so you can show others what you are seeing. And suddenly your hobby becomes a whole lot more involved...

This link is my wish list, although I think January needs a dose of reality! From that page you can easily browse the upcoming courses and come up with your own list.

(Declaration: other than being a current student, I have no links with Coursera.org)