What This Course Is
Descriptive Astronomy is a single-semester survey of the sky — no calculus, no telescope required, just a real curiosity about what's up there and why it does what it does.
We move through a unit a week — the sky itself, the history of how we figured it out, the solar system, stars, galaxies, and cosmology — and you'll keep a running sky journal the whole semester so the class stays connected to the real night sky outside your window.
You don't need a telescope or a math background coming in. Show up, look up, and ask questions — that's the whole deal.
How This Course Works
Every unit runs the same shape: short Activities build a skill, a Project puts it to use with a known outcome, and the unit closes with a Problem — real data, no answer key, your call to defend.
📋 Full grading breakdownActivities happen online, on your own time. Once a week, we meet in person for 65 minutes — that time is reserved for the week's Project, run lab-style.
🗓️ See the week-by-week scheduleThe Six Units
Constellations, celestial motion, coordinates, seasons, moon phases, and eclipses.
Ancient sky-watching, the Copernican Revolution, telescopes, and spectroscopy.
The Sun, terrestrial planets, gas giants, moons, asteroids, and comets.
Stellar properties, the H-R diagram, and the stellar life cycle.
The Milky Way, galaxies beyond, the Big Bang, and dark matter/energy.
Exoplanets, astrobiology, space missions, and your final project.
Where to Go Next