I bid you a found farewell.

Dr Jamie Love 2001-2018 Creative Commons Licence
I hope you have enjoyed this astronomy course. If you have studied the course well, you should now be able to identify the most important parts of the night sky and understand enough astronomy to be able to consider it a serious hobby. I hope these lessons have expanded your understanding of the universe.

Now that you have completed the course you may be ready for your telescope. A good one costs about the same as a computer and a bad one is not worth owning at all. (So, kids, don't pester your parents. Telescopes are expensive! They are NOT toys!) Having said all that, if you are keen to buy a telescope read (again) the section on optical devices. Next, join an local astronomy club. The folks in the club will give you plenty of advice about local dealers and gadgets and that will help you choose the scope you really can use.

"And now for something completely different."

Here is a fun little song that is a favorite of mine. This is provided in the spirt of an educational product under Fair Use policies.
All the information in it is accurate or a close approximation. The speed given for the Earth's rotation is the speed as measured from the equator. Sadly, this song uses miles instead of kilometers. Regardless, it's a very good song and I hope you will enjoy it.

The Galaxy Song
written and sung by Eric Idle (in the Monty Python film "The Meaning of Life").

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs Brown
and things seem hard or tough
and people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
and you feel that you've had quite enough....

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
and revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
that's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
a Sun that is the source of all our power.
The Sun and you and me and all the stars we can see
are moving at a million miles a day,
in an outer spiral arm at forty thousand miles an hour
of the galaxy we call the "Milky Way".

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars!
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light-years thick,
but out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years.
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
in this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
in all of the directions it can whizz.
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light you know,
twelve million miles a minute - and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure,
how amazingly unlikely is your birth,
and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

Wishing you,
Clear Skies,
Jamie