Tools

One of the goals of Open Astronomy Schools is to assemble a large amount of high quality educational activities and resources to use in Astronomy education. Everyone is invited to submit a resource or activity! Below is a small list of selected resources that can help you to propose your training session.

  • Stellarium – This free open source planetarium allows the user to explore cosmic light from a realistic sky in the comfort of your own computer, just like the one we see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. 
  • CelestiaThis free space simulation lets the user explore our universe in three dimensions, travel throughout the solar system, and even beyond our galaxy. Experience at close the objects from which cosmic light one can only have a glimpse of back here on Earth. 
  • MitakaMitaka is a software for visualizing the known Universe with up-to-date observational data and theoretical models, developed by the Four-Dimensional Digital Universe (4D2U) project of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). Mitaka users can seamlessly navigate through space, from the Earth to the edges of the known Universe.   
  • WorldWide TelescopeThis is a rich visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together cosmic light imagery from the best ground- and space-based telescopes to enable seamless, guided explorations of the universe. 
  • Salsa JThis free, student-friendly software allows students to display, analyse, and explore the cosmic light from real astronomical images and other data in the same way that professional astronomers do, making the same kind of discoveries that lead to true excitement about science.
  • Extrasolar Planets Lab This virtual lab introduces the search for planets outside of our solar system using the Doppler and transit methods. It includes simulations of the observed radial velocities of singular planetary systems and introduces the concept of noise and detection enabling to explore the light that reaches us from extra solar planets. 
  • Astronomy TextbookAstronomy is a free, introductory, open-source textbook, designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of one- or two-semester introductory astronomy courses. The book is accompanied by an Open Education Resource Hub with free ancillary materials.
  • ESA’s Fleet Across the SpectrumWith this poster you’ll be able to explain and discover with your students ESA’s main astrophysics missions and their observational coverage across the electromagnetic spectrum.