My course on
astronomy 2024
Like Methodism, I am
committed to lifelong learning and enjoy exploring areas of knowledge,
historical biography, and so on. Much of my research has gone into papers on
the Methodist Heritage website (https://www.methodistheritage.org.uk/methodist-history/methodist-missionary-history-project/
) or talks to local history societies. Astronomy has fascinated me for decades
from primary school days when the Children’s Newspaper had a regular
feature on the night sky and Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future appeared in the Eagle
comic. I made a little telescope and was transfixed by my first view of the
moon at 30x magnification. Since then, in a very amateur way, I have watched
the skies on and off for about 70 years. My star atlas came with us to Africa
where I organised a school astronomy club. Around 2014 I came across distance
learning courses with the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) and signed
up for Introduction to Astronomy, set at Level 4 (first year university). It
gave a good overview of the subject; the sun, planets, stars, constellations, galaxies,
gravity, relativity… That whetted my appetite and over the years I took a few
more modules. They need about 8-9 hours study a week with course notes, assignments,
and online tutorials. Those modules took me through the Sun, Earth, and Climate
(relevant), History of Great Astronomers (loved it!), Cosmology (mind bending),
Astrobiology (fascinating) and Physics and Maths (hard work and useful) to
complete a Certificate in Higher Education with distinction this year. Level 5 and 6 could
follow but I plead age and am stopping at this point.
These courses have
expanded my view of the material creation and I have preached a sermon in a few
of our churches on science, God, and the wonder of creation. It is a beautiful creation
with order and variety to be treated with respect and with hidden wonders that
often turn out to be useful.
In one of his long
poems TS Eliot said, ‘old men ought to be explorers’. Astronomy has taught me a
lot but there are other things to explore.
