The teacher becomes a student

In January I transitioned from my former career as a teacher to a new role as a student. Star gazing has been a passion for some time and I took advantage of the opportunity to take an astronomy course at UNC-G. The experience has been fascinating and challenging!

Dr. Steve Danford is the instructor. He hosted my 2nd grade class on various occasions at the Three College Observatory near Greensboro. We would look at constellations in the dark sky outside of the observatory dome and inside see sights like the Sombrero Galaxy through the telescope.

During the course of the semester I was able to participate in the Peer Learning Program which the university offers for students. Eni Minerali, a biochemistry major from Albania, was my instructor.

She is a remarkable young woman both academically and personally.












She guided my efforts to master the math problems since I hadn't used much algebra in more than 40 years and explained in detail topics we covered in class.

We spent many study sessions solving problems with Eni's guidance.

 Eni's sessions just flew by each week, it had to be the shortest hour of the day! Maybe it was because she was such a good teacher!

Dr. Steve Danford was our professor. In this picture he is getting ready for class, so I snapped a picture of him! He teaches with so much passion that the subject just comes alive, which is amazing considering we are talking about things we can barely see without telescopes. The best part about everything that I learned is that now if I want to know more about the stars in a constellation, when I read about them, I understand the information. This is thanks to Dr. Danford and everything we studied during this semester.




On of my favorite galaxies is M104, The Sombrero Galaxy.

We see it here nearly edge-on. you can see the disk and the glow of the billions of stars it contains. Click the link above the picture to read more about this beautiful galaxy which is 30 million light years away!











During the semester we observed stars, clusters and galaxies at the Three College Observatory. It is located in Alamance County and has much darker skies than we have in the city. You can go to their website and sign up for one of their public observing nights, no cost, but you do need a reservation. Space is limited. One night we saw the International Space Station pass over. To see the ISS you don't need a telescope or even binoculars. Just go to the ISS website to see when it will be passing over your location. Fill in your country, state and city and the site will tell you the next nights when the ISS will be passing overhead. It even tells you exactly when it will appear, from what direction and how many minutes you can see it. It will appear as a bright light, not blinking and will move steadily across the part of the sky where it appears that night.

Well the final exam is over, I learned more than I ever imagined and met some amazing undergraduate students at UNCG. A parting thought that I leave you with on this post:

Thanks to Ron for the idea for this graphic!

Till next time...