Northern Sydney Astronomical Society

Our society is based in the northern suburbs of Sydney (NSW, Australia) and we cater for a number of streams of astronomy-related interests at all levels. Please visit the site regularly to get updated news on our upcoming events and activities.

Professor Paul Francis

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NSAS is delighted to be able to invite you to a free seminar by Professor Paul Francis from the Australian National University. Paul is an ANU Distinguished Educator, Astrophysicist at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, ANU College of Science.

Paul is an astrophysicist, who focussed his research on galaxies and black holes in the early universe, before catching a bad case of the teaching bug. Since then, he has focussed on teaching large classes, both in-person and online. He is infamous amongst his students for talking much too fast in an incomprehensible pommie accent, and for his dubious taste in waistcoats.

He has been involved in many educational innovations, including using role-plays to teach astrophysics, developing the ANU's first MOOCs, which have currently been taken by over 300,000 students from 178 countries around the world, and for teaching the large 1st year physics classes without any lectures. He has won a wide range of prizes for education and science communication, including the 2016 Australian Award for University Teaching.

Paul will be talking about cosmology in general with the topic to be refined as we get closer to the date. 


GENERAL MEETINGS Our General Meetings are held each month (except Dec/Jan) and are conducted at Regis Hall (refer to Meeting Locations) and via Zoom Meeting.

The meetings are open to everybody, i.e. NSAS members and non-members alike. The meetings are on the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:30pm (AEDST). 

For more details including meeting dates, refer to our Events page.

NEW BEGINNER COURSES FOR 2023 NOW ANNOUNCED!
BEGINNERS OPEN QUESTION NIGHT ON ZOOM (BOQ) AND BEGINNERS NIGHT IN THE FIELD (BNF). 
REGISTER IN Events

We have a curriculum to support beginners who wish to get involved with the practical aspects of astronomy i.e. telescopes etc. It consists of an initial Q&A zoom session to cover the basics of astronomy and telescopes and then a field session to put that into practice. The field session is limited to 10 telescopes so that each person gets the support they need from a NSAS instructor. For more information, and to reserve your booking please refer https://nsas.org.au/beginners-night-in-the-field.