Ask Slashdot: How To Pick Up Astronomy and Physics As an Adult? 234
First time accepted submitter samalex01 (1290786) writes "I'm 38, married, two young kids, and I have a nice job in the IT industry, but since I was a kid I've had this deep love and passion for astronomy and astrophysics. This love and passion though never evolved into any formal education or anything beyond just a distant fascination as I got out of high school, into college, and started going through life on more of an IT career path. So my question, now that I'm 38 is there any hope that I could start learning more about astronomy or physics to make it more than just a hobby? I don't expect to be a Carl Sagan or Neil deGrasse Tyson, but I'd love to have enough knowledge in these subjects to research and experiment to the point where I could possibly start contributing back to the field. MIT Open Courseware has some online courses for free that cover these topics, but given I can only spend maybe 10 hours a week on this would it be a pointless venture? Not to mention my mind isn't as sharp now as it was 20 years ago when I graduated high school. Thanks for any advice or suggestions."
Telescopes and camping or night-tours (Score:5, Interesting)
It's probably safe to accept that you'll be a consumer of science rather than a producer of it, but that's okay. Go camping with a large telescope and enjoy the world. Buy books or programs that let you track the objects of the night sky. Look at what NASA, the ESA, and IAU release.
If you're lucky you'll identify a new asteroid or comet.
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On the astronomy side, I second the camping with a telescope idea. I've had friends tell me about groups of astronomy enthusiasts who schedule nights to meet up in places to star-gaze and/or camp out. Most of them bring their own telescopes and like to chat and show off the various features and techniques, show you things they've found with their telescopes, help you with yours, and so on. Check one out and see if it's a kid-friendly environment for a fun camping overnight (I have no idea if it would be or
Re:Telescopes and camping or night-tours (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.stellarium.org/
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Many communities have local astronomy clubs. It would be good to join one of those before purchasing a scope. Telescopes have a lot in common with purchasing your first house. What you think you want and what you need are two different things and often not apparent until after the mis-purchase is made. An astronomy club will let you experience various scopes so you have a better idea of what to get to fit your needs. Also, often, there are others in the club looking to upgrade their equipment and will sel
As a hobby yes, as a job NO (Score:4, Informative)
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there is more than traditional astronomy, cosmology and astrophysics have teaching jobs, and the various national labs have job openings
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That's not really true. I would say that astronomy and astrophysics classes typically had between 5-20 students, probably averaging around 12. At the PhD level (which you need to obtain to train astronomers and astronomy teachers), it might actually be less than one astronomy/astrophysics student per PhD-holder. There are a lot of people who get an astronomy/astrophysics degree at the undergraduate and graduate level who do not get a PhD or do not teach university students. Some teach primary, secondary
Re:As a hobby yes, as a job NO (Score:5, Insightful)
That's certainly something a lot of people are finding out. In times of economic troubles, fields like astronomy are the first to suffer.
As for the original question, I think you have more than enough time to learn physics and astronomy if you pick up some books and watch videos, to the point where you might be a pretty good amateur enthusiast. But contributing to the field? Maybe by doing some amateur astromy, you can help us spot objects. Lots of people are happy with that. I guess if you have good programming skills, you might spend some time learning physics to the point where you can run your own simulations, assuming you don't need a supercomputer to do so. 10 hours a week is definitely on the low side though, it's going to take a while to learn everything you need to know. Also, it's very unlikely you will get published unless you manage to be associated with a university. Maybe inquire into doing a part-time degree or something? The reality is that if you're not in the academic world, it's hard to contribute meaningfully.
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That's certainly something a lot of people are finding out. In times of economic troubles, fields like astronomy are the first to suffer.
Even in good times, astronomy as a career choice will suffer due to the considerable overproduction of PhDs in the field.
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I'm older but in the same boat (Score:2)
Re:I'm older but in the same boat (Score:5, Informative)
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Just do it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Look up "Galaxy Zoo". You can start contributing today.
As for classes, start reading. Find out which books are used for the courses and buy the books and read them even if you cannot take the courses.
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Have a look at this book: "Statistics, data mining and machine learning in astronomy" http://www.britastro.org/journ... [britastro.org]
I have my BS in Physics, but I write software. I think it would be pretty hard at 10 hours a week to pick up the math of most of the advanced topics - even mechanics. But, learning statistics and data mining and having public access to data like the Sloan Survey would put you in the position to make real discoveries as an amateur. And, a modicum of co
Community College (Score:2, Interesting)
Hit the local community college. At one class per term you can brush up on math and after that's all fresh take a physics/chemistry/astronomy class as you deem appropriate. Once you have the basics down then move on to the MOOCs at least that's my plan.
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Brush up on calculus (Score:5, Insightful)
Brush up on calculus. Without math, astrophysics, well, anything, really, is just playing with Legos. Khan Academy or a million other sites can assist your math textbook self-study. From there, get an Astrophysics "required courses" guide from a university and have at. Oh, be sure to skip the humanities and other useless classes. O:-)
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Astronomy club? (Score:5, Informative)
I can't give you any specific advice, but maybe a local astronomy club?
I know one of the people who discovered Hale-Bopp is a gifted amateur, and I'm quite certain lots of stuff by amateurs happens which is pretty cool.
In fact, I get the impression lots of amateurs can give coverage which the "pros" can't really do just because of the sheer number of amateurs.
Good luck with it. Hopefully people can point you at more concrete stuff, but you'd hardly be the first amateur who contributed something to the field if you get there.
Re:Astronomy club? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Teaching Company (Score:2, Interesting)
2 ways (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Find your local planetarium and get involved. They may need/want volunteers to conduct shows, etc.
2) Find a local community college that offers an AA in astronomy or similar field.
Now, these may be unreliable for you, but the community college I work at has both an AA for astronomy, one for physics (both for transferring to a state university) but we also have a kick ass planetarium that is managed by one of the new Star Gazers. So, at least if you are in N Florida, it could work.
Volunteers are Usually Welcome (Score:4, Interesting)
It's unlikely you can make the transition to working in the field without some really major sacrifices. (And if you do, it will probably be more on the computational side.) But if you love it for it's own sake I'd suggest talking to local labs and seeing if you can get involved in any projects - especially projects where you can work remotely at least part of the time, since your time is limited. And as a volunteer, you often get to avoid some of the more tedious bits that people who are being paid have to work on. My experience is that people with solid computer skills are needed, and people who will work are needed, and there's way more cool work to be done than there are money and people to do it.
And, of course, if there are any opportunities for you to work in a paid capacity, you'll be in the perfect position to hear about them.
I made the transition from tech to computational biochemistry to neurobio - but I had a lot of stock options, and I've been willing to become a grad student, and live mostly like a grad student, which is hard to do when you have a family. And while biomed funding has been cut, there's a lot more of it out there to begin with.
(I'm not generically saying that people should work for free, BTW. I know for me, research turned out to be what I wanted to be doing when I wasn't worrying about money. Though, um, then there were a couple of stock market crashes...)
Re:Volunteers are Usually Welcome (Score:5, Funny)
tl;dr version: How do you make a million dollars in astronomy? Start with ten million dollars.
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It's unlikely you can make the transition to working in the field without some really major sacrifices. (And if you do, it will probably be more on the computational side.) But if you love it for it's own sake I'd suggest talking to local labs and seeing if you can get involved in any projects - especially projects where you can work remotely at least part of the time, since your time is limited. And as a volunteer, you often get to avoid some of the more tedious bits that people who are being paid have to work on. My experience is that people with solid computer skills are needed, and people who will work are needed, and there's way more cool work to be done than there are money and people to do it.
I'm not as sure this would work out. Yes, computer skills are very much in demand, but if your background is in IT the only thing you can do independently is IT work, just in astronomy. Astronomy volunteers are typically on the leading tours or administrative side as opposed to the research side. Why? Because it takes several years of PhD work to understand what you're doing and another few just to be able to work semi-independently. I'd also point out that without the ability to work independently, you'll
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A lot of it is going to depend on the particular project and what skills and qualities the individual can bring to the table. I did have a background in high performance distributed network computing*, and a lot of general systems design work, but nothing beyond that to suggest that I could walk into a computational biochemistry lab and be managing a major project in under a year. I had no biology, very little chemistry, no biochem, certainly not enough physics, and there I am doing MD protein dynamics work
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Which goes to show how valuable programming skills are. Ideally, PIs want someone with a background in their field and the capabilities of an software engineer. It's very, very hard to find those, so you either get a PhD and tell him/her to learn how to code (often leading to horrible code that does the right thing) or get a software engineer (leading to high quality code but simple mistakes at the conceptual level - particularly since smaller projects have no requirement documents or the like). Typically y
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There is definitely a lack of people who are a serious about their computer science as they are their science area of interest. (I will spare you the rants, other than to mention that my doctoral work is evenly split between experimental and computational work.) "Programmer" is a bit of a gloss. I mean, technically, yeah, I'm a decent programmer, but I'm a much better designer, auditor and analyst - perhaps "engineer"? I build things and make things work. As a matter of preference, I don't actually like to
No (Score:4, Insightful)
I can only spend maybe 10 hours a week on this
Since you already have a full life, something would have to give. The amount of time you estimate to be available would get to hobby level: the same as the other thousands of amateur astronomers in the country. But it's not enough to do any serious studying, get qualified or do research to a publishable quality.
This. (Score:2)
I can only spend maybe 10 hours a week on this
Since you already have a full life, something would have to give. The amount of time you estimate to be available would get to hobby level: the same as the other thousands of amateur astronomers in the country. But it's not enough to do any serious studying, get qualified or do research to a publishable quality.
This.
I read through the comments to find this comment so that I didn't just post a duplicate if someone else had covered the ground.
Let me be really blunt about the amount of time you are intending to invest in this project. If you were taking a college course, you should expect to spend 2 hours out of class for each hour you spend in class, and given that you only have 10 hours to dedicate to the idea, that's effectively 3 credit hours for every interval. So if you picked a community college, and they of
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Tell me, does this account for the fact that the majority of people working in a scientific field graduate with a PhD in their mid 20s, or is it simply a reflection of that?
I expect that it's a little bit of both. Look however at Kepler and Tycho Brahe. Brahe's observational contributions aided Kepler, but he started well before he was 30. Kepler had his theories before 30, and was aided by Brahe into his 30's proving them out. Counter examples include Newton, and so on. Most Large contributions that aren't ideas themselves are contributions based on the wealth of the contributor, e.g. The Allen Telescope Array.
Like the GP, I'm in my late 30s and have found that my current field is less than optimal. It is a) unfulfilling, b) extremely underpaid (if I do more than 13 hours a week, the CEO running the studio is just as likely to steal my hours from me as not), and c) unlikely to go anywhere.
Reason (a) is motivation to do something that could be big, i
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The amount of time you estimate to be available would get to hobby level
Unless you're willing to spend 16 years to get there
Find an Astronomy Club in your area (Score:2)
Find an amateur Astronomy club in your area. Go to their events. Meet people. Learn things. Look at shit.
There are a lot of amateurs that hunt comets and asteroids.
Plenty of Fun (Score:2)
As a family man, finding a topic that can involve the kids may fit into your life better. If you like making, optical telescopes can be rewarding. There's the optics, telescope manufacturing and sky trackers (robotics). Nowadays digital photography goes with telescopes.
If you really want to contribute peripherally, there are lots of open data sets. Contributing code is especially useful.
You "mind isn't as sharp"? (Score:2)
WTF?
While I can't swim laps or run miles as fast as I could when I was 20, at 48 I sure as hell can out think my younger self.
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I'm over 50. I doubt that I pick up new stuff as quickly as I did in my 20s, but I have much more discipline and experience.
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Don't worry scro... there are plenty of 'tards out there living really kick ass lives!
I like money (Score:2)
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Sadly, various studies support the fact that one mentally 'peaks' at around the mid-20's and then gradually drops after that. Now it's true that lost 'sharpness' can, to some degree, be replaced by gained wisdom. Maybe that's what you're talking about. But could you pick up a new subject as fast as your 20 year old self could? Unlikely.
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Honestly - that has not been my experience. I just started a graduate course in applied cryptography and the concepts seems to come far easier now than stuff did in my undergraduate (or previous graduate program) days.
And to be even more perfectly honest, I smoke weed now and didn't then.
But then again I still wake up with morning wood. That's it!
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True, I do feel like Dr Lexus from Idiocracy much of the time.
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I don't know shit about chess except that I sucked 28 years ago, and suck now. But a quick Google survey about the top chess players would seem to contradict your claim that the best players are in their 20's
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That's silly. Sure the #1 player is in their 20's. What on earth does that have to do with learning new things? The younger trend for ranked chess players likely has a lot more to do with the fact that there is almost no money it .
Since there are players that were world chess champions for spans of 20 years or longer, your logic makes sense. Since we are the same age, I don't believe your failing logic is a product of your aging mind.
Has anyone done this? (Score:2)
If anyone on Slashdot has made a major career shift into the sciences later in life, I would be very interested to hear that story.
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I have, as I mentioned above. (Software to computational biochemistry to neurobiology. Of course I did Chinese and political economics as an undergrad...) Currently finishing a doctorate.
Some Math Required. (Score:5, Interesting)
I recommend "The Theoretical Minimum" books as a good starter to get you through to the level of mathematics needed to be able to read the quantum math and vector/tensor calculus used in field equations. Statistical calculus also.
Once you have these under your belt, comprehending the real physics textbooks and papers will be unlocked.
This stuff is not hard are impenetrable, but the language is if you don't know it. The language isn't hard or impenetrable. E.G. Vector calculus is much simpler that algebra. Just find a good book or teacher that doesn't blind you with procedure over concepts.
We love teaching physics to passionate pupils! (Score:4, Interesting)
PhD candidate here: are you in the 434 or 919 areas? If so, tell me and I we'll get coffee and see if setting up scheduled lunches gets us somewhere.
If not, Craigslist. Type "physics" or "physicist" in the meetup section of Craigslist and you'll find lots of budding graduate students or new professors that live to meet people like you.
Exoplanet detection, for example (Score:3)
I recall hearing a few stories about amateur astronomers and/or teams detecting exoplanets. See this previous Slashdot article, for example:
http://science.slashdot.org/st... [slashdot.org]
Is this the kind of thing that you're interested in?
From a physics professor (Score:5, Informative)
I've been a physics professor at a large public university for 22 years, and have taught many introductory classes. (Yes, we are innovating our teaching with new techniques -- different question.)
You will never learn anything by reading books or watching videos. The only way to learn physics is by working problems. Hard problems, that make you sweat, and lots of them. But you can do this, and with the online resources you could be successful. Also you can pace yourself.
Ten hours per week is one class. Start with calculus based mechanics, (kinematics, Newton's laws, work-energy theorem, conservation of momentum, energy, and angular momentum.) If you can do the problems in a standard university physics book, then move on to electricity and magnetism. If you get through that and you don't think Maxwell's equations are the most awesome thing ever, then stop.
Also, never be afraid to learn your math in a physics course. It's the best way.
Good luck! You could really enjoy this if you will truly work at it for 10 hours per week as you suggest. But like dieting, you have to commit.
—George
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Also, never be afraid to learn your math in a physics course. It's the best way.
That kinda depends...I found it was easier just taking more math courses than trying to figure out what the hell my EM professor was doing. Eventually I just switched majors to Math.
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I have a physics background and have tutored classes in physics for twenty years. The math is key - no math, no physics.
I would also suggest actually taking a course - with a lecturer, and someone to answer questions, in ordinary differential equations. You will find that a lot of really hard physics problems become easy, once you understand where the derivation lies.
Don't take a math department course in DiffEq. You will learn to prove that a solution exists, but not how to go about getting one. Instea
MOOCs (Score:3)
You mentioned online courses. There are plenty of good quality ones these days. Some you're expected to work to a particular schedule, some you can do at your own pace. 10 hours a week is plenty.
I'm going to pick you up on one thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong! Unless you have early onset Alzheimer's, your brain can be as sharp or sharper than it was in high school. I'm 49 and doing 2nd year university math, physics and statistics and I'm MUCH better at any of them than I was when I graduated high school.
Suggestions:
1. Join an astronomy club (mentioned above, but I'd reinforce it). See the wonder, gain experience and confidence from others.
2. Buy a small telescope with a motorized mount and learn to do some astrophotography
3. Do a course or two on edX or coursera - the way to get better at running is to run, the way to get better at science is to do science.
4. Reading books is good. Doing what the book says is much better.
Your mind is saying "feed me" so go feed it. You won't regret it.
Three words... (Score:2)
Find a local amateur astronomy club (Score:5, Interesting)
How to Pick Up Astronomy (Score:2)
You pick up astronomy with Archimede's lever, duh!
Doesnt Hurt to try (Score:2)
Go for it, don't quit your day job, and worst case scenario you never manage to contribute anything major to the field, but you gain a greater understanding of something you find interesting. Best case scenario you excel discover all the mysteries of the universe.
All you have to lose is the time you spend on it, if it's a passion of yours then you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Volunteer at the Uni (Score:2, Insightful)
Quite frankly, one of the options that I frequently see underrated is simply helping out a professor.
As an example, my local university (University of Central Florida) was hiring for a position in IT support for exoplanet discovery.
http://planets.ucf.edu/people/... [ucf.edu]
http://planets.ucf.edu/researc... [ucf.edu]
They were looking for someone with a background in IT/process managment/cloudsourcing to help with keeping their cluster computing infrastructure up/functional. I'm sure that they would have accepted a "volunteer"
Most of astronomy is analyzing images. . . (Score:3)
. . . and drawing conclusions. Most of astrophysics is creating models based on a deep understanding of the physics involved in astronomical objects. In both cases, it boils down primarily to having a good understanding of the physics of what you are doing and being good with computer programming and analyzing data.
The barrier for entry is theoretically really low, because most people have a fast computer. But can you really learn years of physics and astronomy as well as analytical techniques on your own? Quite possibly, especially if you already took the whole lower division math and physics courses as part of another degree (3 Semesters of Physics, 3 semesters of calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, computer programming for science and engineering, statistics). A lot of astronomy is done with the data already available from first class telescopes such as the Hubble and you could probably read all the basic undergraduate and introductory graduate texts on your own.
On the other hand, if you're coming into the field with no background in math and physics, it's going to be tough to read books full of differential equations, triple integrals, and electromechanics. Could you learn all that math and physics background on your own? Possibly, but you'd probably be best served with night school at the JC.
On the other hand, amateur astronomy can be fun. You can collaborate with professional astronomers on projects, and you can learn at your own pace without getting bogged down in the details right away. It is a lot more fun to look at Orion nebula through a 12" scope than it is to calibrate it for spectroscopy or photometry and analyze the data.
Resources (Score:2)
Podcasts: pick up a used ipod and subscribe to the astronomy related podcasts.
Kindle: get a used kindle that has the bubble-type keyboard, and let it read books and papers to you. The keyboard lets you start/stop the reader without looking, for in the car use. Download Calibre application and convert online/document resources and copy them to
Astronomy & physics need IT support (Score:2)
I work as a programmer & sysadmin supporting a solar physics archive. Although most scientists these days have to learn how to program to some degree (to be able to analyze their data), there's still a large number of IT people who work in these fields -- as programmers, sysadmins, DBAs, etc.
So, if you're in the Tucson, AZ; Menlo Park, CA; Princeton, NJ; or Seattle, WA area, keep an eye on the LSST hiring page [lsst.org].
There are likely to be other projects out there hiring, but I don't know what their various s
It's about time (Score:2)
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And, the corollary to the parent post is ... even if you will never come up with some breakthrough or advancement in the field ... do it anyway.
So, you may not get published, or find something which rocks the community. Who gives a damn?
Do it for yourself. Have fun with it. You're old enough to understand that the reward doesn't come from anything but you.
After a bunch of years, who knows where you'll end up?
This will take a minute... (Score:2)
I was a kid I've had this deep love and passion for astronomy and astrophysics. This love and passion though never evolved into any formal education or anything beyond just a distant fascination as I got out of high school, into college ...
So which is it, a "deep love and passion" or "distant fascination"? If the former, your life mistake was not pursuing it in college, etc... If simply the latter, then read a few books about it as a hobby. Either way, with two kids and a full-time job, you probably don't have the time and determination to learn enough to "start contributing back to the field" - at least, not anytime soon.
Astronomy and/or astrophysics is not just something you pick up over the weekend. As someone once said, "Traveling th
Learning after 30 (Score:2)
Get a subscription to Sky and Telescope magazine. (Score:4, Informative)
Start reading it. They go through the basics and have articles on how amateurs can contribute to research.
But you really need to limit your expectations. Observational astronomy (even amateur-style) requires several hours of daytime prep work, followed by 1-2 hours of equipment setup and familiarization, before you even embark in a 3-4 hour observation run. After an observing run, you might have another 2-10 hours of data processing to do.
If you have a wife, two kids, and a day job, you will get pretty tired pretty quick.
Good equipment (solid mount, high quality telescope, imaging system, star stracker) is not cheap either and, sadly, most people need to invest in or borrow good equipment before they can really evaluate if they like it or if they want to stick with it.
True story (Score:2)
True Story...
I wanted to do this when I was about 30... We have a very prestigious college here so I went there, to the physics lab and sat down with a professor.
He said if I came in with strait A's in math... maybe... otherwise it was an unqualified "No"
He went on to say that if I didn't have strait A's in math to go to the local community college and take math courses that were specifically linked to the University. They have classes that do carry credit at the university. If I could get a 4.0+ in advance
Astronomy is a good pick (Score:2)
As far as physics goes, Khan Academy is a fantastic resource - you can get through advanced high school/basic undergraduate physics with those videos, and all of the math you will need for that level is also available. T
As far as employment in physics goes... (Score:2)
So, honestly, if you want "physicist" to be somewhere in your job title, you will need a PHd, no way around it. If you
Read Penrose's "The Road to Reality" (Score:2)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Road... [amazon.com]
I spent a couple of years in grad school studying theoretical physics, and this is an excellent learning book.
Getting into astronomy (Score:5, Informative)
I was an astronomer until I left the field last year after I graduated with my PhD. First, I definitely think it's great you want to contribute to research. My personal suggestion is to find a local astronomy club and see what they're doing. Find some books, news articles, etc... to read. That will hopefully give you a decent introduction. If you live near a university with a decent astrophysics program, you can also see if they have any public lectures or, if you want something more intense, attend seminars (though they're typically during the day). They're typically open to the public, but you should probably e-mail first just to double check. There are also things like Galaxy Zoo and similar projects that let you get involved without any commitment.
If you want to get more serious, you should think about what you want to do. Do you want to do any research? Participate in volunteer activities? Just go observing? For the latter, local astronomy clubs (or star parties) would be a good first start. Some of the big observatories also have programs for amateur observing. Mauna Kea is absolutely amazing for this - every night at the visitor center they bring out some decent sized telescopes (decent sized for seeing with your eyes) and there's usually a bunch of volunteers to help understand what they're pointing them at. Oftentimes dedicated amateurs will come up as well with even bigger telescopes and are happy to share. You also sometimes get professional astronomers who hang out there (like I did a few nights) though the amateurs are usually better at describing what you're seeing (professional astronomy is all about physics - not pretty images).
If you live near a big observatory (mostly southwest US, California, or Hawaii) you can also try to volunteer to be a docent there or something similar. Many of the observatories have some program for volunteers to help lead tours, attend public talks by researchers, and similar. The more dedicated volunteers get some perks, like joining for observing runs, seeing some of the behind-the-scenes things at the telescopes, and similar.
On the research side, it's a lot harder and a lot more investment (time, money, or both). To be able to do semi-independent research in astronomy you'd need to basically do a PhD. That's 40-50 hours a week (at least) for 5-7 years. It's hard. You can do more limited things though. For example, the AAVSO [aavso.org] (American Association of Variable Star Observers) is a great organization that organizes observing of variable stars and provides some support to write up the results. Amateur data has been used in many papers. But, this requires having your own telescope that can take scientific quality images. You can also work on data analysis, but this will definitely require some time to understand how to do it. I'd also point out that most people underestimate how hard it is to write a scientific paper. Especially your first one.
As for going into it professionally, I agree with others who have said there are few jobs in the field. Especially if you have a family, it would be very hard to start from scratch.
Get a telescope! (Score:2)
Preferably, considering your age, one with WIFI that sends the image directly to your iPad, so that you don't have to freeze your ass off in the garden.
Read Heinlein (Score:2)
Many of Robert Heinlein works were truly Science Fiction. His characters' travels around the Solar System [heinleinsociety.org], for example, are described enumerating the challenges and details such travel are likely to have in real life. He also has several descriptions of human life outside of Earth — on Ganymede [wikipedia.org], on Mars [heinleinsociety.org], and on the Moon [wikipedia.org]. None of the descriptions were patently unscientific, when they were written (knowing what we do now, he would not have described life on Venus as he did, of course).
He wrote many of
It's easy (Score:2)
You just need to spend time where they hang out...
Local Library (Score:2)
Here's how (Score:2)
Start gathering a few popular science books on subjects directly on and also near to your goal. Some people reject popular science books as too light weight, but it does have value. This exposes you to the variety of subjects in and around your interest. You might not have been aware of some aspects of your topic and you are introduced to them here without too much effort. You also learn to associate detailed technical topics to the wider areas where they are us
10,000 hour rule... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's been proposed that it takes about 10,000 hours to get really good at anything. At 10 hours per week, 40 weeks a year (dropped to 40 to account for breaks), equals 400 hours a year. 10,000 / 400 = 25 years. So, if you keep at it, by the time you get to be about retirement age you would be at the point where you could contribute back to the field. Plus, on retirement, you could dedicate more time...
Some things take less than 10,000 hours to master. However, astronomy is a wide open concept with a lot of moving parts (literally)...
Good luck and, most important of all, have fun....
Job in astronomy IT? (Score:2)
Astronomers produce tons of data and need IT experts to manage their data centers, etc. You could try to get one of these jobs. Probably they do not pay great but you could make a real contribution to research using your existing expertise.
You aren't too old to go back to school (Score:2)
Your answer depends on how serious you are about this. Since you want to "contribute back to the field", it sounds like grad school is the way to go. But then you say that you can't spend more than 10 hours a week on open courseware, so I'm not sure how willing you are to leave IT.
In your situation, you might try to get involved in scientific programming, and simulation work. In this case, your IT background will be an asset, and you will also be working on physics.
Yes! (Score:2)
What kind of software do astronomers need? (Score:2)
I'm like this guy, wanted to be an astronomer but went into CS because it was the lazy easy thing.
Now I'm probably going to retire in a few years and would like to do something that matters before I'm too dumb and slow. I doubt I'll ever learn enough physics to advance the science, but I've seen what passes for software in academic settings, and I could certainly make the software suck less.
So what kind of software does astronomy need?
Unpaid research? (Score:2)
I am now a research physicist, doing experimental condensed matter physics, but when I was an undergraduate physics major, I got a research job in my sophomore year working for an astrophysicist, for what was nominally 10 hours per week. It is true that getting a Ph.D. in grad school probably requires about 20,000 hours of work, and this is if you start with a physics/astrophysics undergraduate degree, but I was able to start contributing to research with very little background. This was in the early 1990s,
Einstein and Infeld (Score:2)
Start here, Einstein and Infeld. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Physics
Learn about it and do variable star observation (Score:2)
Join the http://www.aavso.org/ [aavso.org] and do some amateur work for them. Observing targets continuously is really important. The work is necessary - big money telescopes just don't have the time to do this sort of stuff.
Alternatively go the Mechanical Turk route and look at citizen science, finding things like exoplanets or interesting things in heaps of data. There's the possibility for publication there, but it's slim.
Realistically you're not going to be able to do anything worth publishing with 10 hours a
As an adult (Score:2)
Start going outside on clear nights, skip prime time and then some, look up -- and then (it's a sign of awe) start wondering like... a kid.
I Am an Astrophysicist (but you do not salute me) (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up (Score:2)
There have been unusually many good answers here, but this is the best one so far. This is the most realistic way to make a useful contribution to astronomy for the original poster, and it does not involve 25 years of training before probably not getting there.
For Orbital Mechanics and Astrophyiscs (Score:2)
Check out Kerbal Space Program [kerbalspaceprogram.com]. You can build rockets, send them into orbit, land on the moon, and learn about concepts like apoapsis, retrograde burns, orbital transfers, and learn astrophysics -- plus it's simple enough I've seen multiple dads who have a blast playing with their kids. It runs on Linux/Mac/Windows and has a good free demo.
...but does it really teach orbital mechanics? Oblig XKCD [xkcd.com] says yes;)
Sure (Score:2)
MIT Open Courseware has some online courses for free that cover these topics, but given I can only spend maybe 10 hours a week on this would it be a pointless venture? Not to mention my mind isn't as sharp now as it was 20 years ago when I graduated high school.
Try out those courses, only time will tell. As far as your mind's
Slooh (Score:2)
You might be interested on Slooh (http://www.slooh.com) which is pronounced like "slew", as in the motion of a telescope turning on its mount.
Slooh lets you control telescopes in the Canary Islands or Chile, for a modest subscription fee. You might start out getting your own images of nearby planets, or collect the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and then move on to more distant objects. You can do this on your own, but you can also collaborate with other Slooh members. Some of them are working to track
skip to the end (Score:2)
Figure out what you really want to do with this. Do you want to understand everything very broadly? Do you want to become a specialist in a particular niche?
If the answer is broad understanding, lookup dogvomit's post and take the traditional coursework in the traditional order at your pace. There are sets of problems honed over the last 100 years to train people to think like physicists. Then you can go read Einstein and dense particle physics books; that's a lot of fun but probably won't go anywhere. Ve
Mentor? (Score:2)
There's something of a dearth of material out there for people who want to learn STEM topics on a casual basis and are somewhere in between a layperson and a specialist. Most of what you can find to read is either written for the general public (popular science books and magazines) or dry scientific papers. I've also had a lifelong interest in science, but did not pursue it as a career, and it's always a challenge to find stuff which I can read and yet which hasn't had the details filtered out...
"Science
Well why not? (Score:2)
Christ on a shingle, what's up with the "Will it be a pointless venture?" You already answered that when you said you wouldn't be the next Neil deGrasse Tyson or Carl Sagan. If that's your only limitation, then there's a lot of room between doing nothing and being in the top 100 recognized members of the pack.
And, even if it is a pointless venture, who cares? A person doesn't need to justify his choice of hobby and we all need our recreation time. Astronomy and astrophysics seems to be a place where an amat
Re: (Score:2)
I've got one where Pluto is a planet!
Re: (Score:2)
You appear to have misspelled 'actor' or 'musician'.