Hey learners!
Dr. Sharon wanted your feedback on:
and if some of your questions have gone unanswered please post them on the forum under this post
Have a great day!
Stay safe 
topics you like to learn more about: universe expansion, some real life instruments used by astronomers, interesting stories of people behind research or the circumstances some important discoveries were made.
your favorite topic from the course: Life and Death of stars (The Stellar Nursery)
any general feedback on the course: In general it’s interesting and entertaining. Some formulas were shown without being demonstrated, which makes it somewhat hard to grasp. All metaphors and thought experiments are really helpful in getting abstract concepts.
I’ve almost finished the course, so can you give me a day or two to post some feedback?
yes, absolutely @pat
An impressive aspect of this course is the way complex concepts such as special and general relativity, gravitational waves etc are broken down and explained clearly with the help of excellent animations.
I am also impressed by the updates! Many courses are well prepared, but a few years down the track, they haven’t mentioned new discoveries in the field, and some seem positively dated after about five years. This course mentions telescopes of various kinds that are constantly being deployed and also talks about new discoveries.
The quizzes were challenging and well thought out, with questions to think about carefully and not too much mathematics. The quizzes helped consolidate knowledge and helped me figure out what I really knew compared to what I thought I knew.
Meet your instructors (first step of the course) mentions five instructors, but the Acknowledgements page (last step of the course) only names three.
And thank you, Dr Sharon, for joining the live session. Although I didn’t make it out of bed at 1 am, I watched it later. It gave me renewed enthusiasm to continue the course. I hope one day you can make it to Australia and see southern stars such as the Southern Cross, interesting sights in Centaurus constellation, and the Magellanic Clouds.
And I forgot! Favorite aspect: the animations (can’t think of a favorite topic - I enjoyed it all).
Something I’d like to know more about: how systems/stars are named. Some of the names were very complex, which made me wonder if there was a system for naming them. For example: PSR J1748, V404 Cyg, and 3A 1954+319
I still have the last two units to complete but I have a couple of suggestions. First I’d like to say that I’ve enjoyed the course and learned a lot. One suggestion I have is to discuss the formulas more completely and explain the units needed for them in particular, perhaps i a separate set of notes. The notes provided seem to merely parrot the lectures. Further, I believe each topic could use a bibliography with pointers toward further study.
It was a great class. Quizzes were challenging and nicely designed to match weekly content.
Next update, we would like to see observations from James Webb ST maybe?
also ngEHT…
If and when you visit Cambridge, MA…please feel free to drop a line…would be happy to meet you and will try to arrange your meeting with the radio astronomy group at the black hole institute at the center for astrophysics at Harvard.
Thank you for a wonderful and exciting class! Please convey this to your entire team!
Exciting times are ahead!