ASOTA Scientist Interviews

You are probably already aware of the interviews Chris conducted with 20 of his colleagues for Astronomy: State of the Art. If you are not, pay close attention to this post. The interviews were all recorded over a year ago now, and the number of listens they get is dwindling; so I've stopped by to remind you that they are a great collection of interviews, and are all worth a listen. If you have listened to them all already, but it's been awhile, consider giving them another listen. Below I will list the most played, most liked, and most downloaded interviews, to give you somewhere to start from.

Chris is in Australia, so we won't be having another live session until August at the earliest, but if you have questions after listening to the interviews, please email them to the ASOTA team at astronomysota@gmail.com. We will add them to our queue of questions for our next live session.

Remember, the following are a small selection of the interviews available. Please pick some others to listen to, and let us know what you think.


Most Played
1. Buddy Martin


2. Peter Smith


3. Mike Lesser

4. Roger Angel


Most Liked
1. Buddy Martin
2. Adam Showman


3. Mike Lesser
4. Peter Smith

Most Downloaded
1. Buddy Martin
2. Ilaria Pascucci


3. Feryal Ozel

4. Dave Arnett

Thank You for Your Reviews of Astronomy: State of the Art

Have you left a review of ASOTA on Udemy yet?

We love reading what our students think of the course. A big motivation behind creating ASOTA is to investigate the potential of MOOCs. Can the internet be used effectively for teaching? Can students learn outside the classroom setting? What do you think? What was your experience with ASOTA? What were your favorite features of the course? How could it have been better? Let us know by reviewing on Udemy, or sending us an email.

Here's a word cloud I created using the reviews you've left on Udemy so far.

Thanks for the rave reviews!

Welcome to the class!

I'm excited that we are underway and there are over 800 of you, spread around the U.S. and the world. The first week of materials on telescopes and detectors are posted:

• An overview video
• .pdf slides on all topics
• Video mini-lectures on 7 of those topics (the "cutting edge" ones)
• An activity, and
• A simple quiz

As we start I'd like to ask each of you to register on the Teach Astronomy web site (if you pre-registered on that site, you don't need to do this). The minimal information you provide will be kept secure and only used in relation to astronomy and this course. I need this to be able to communicate with you directly (which is not possible in Udemy), and to share additional instructional resources and social media conversations about the course (neither of which can be hosted by Udemy). I hope you enjoy the information and the experience. Chris I.