Teaching-Astronomy

Astronomy teaching at Sussex

MSc courses

The Astronomy MSc degree started in October 1965, some three months before the first member of astronomy faculty (Bill McCrea) arrived. As recorded in Roger Tayler's article about the first thirty years of astronomy at Sussex, the first teaching was done by visiting faculty from the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO), then at Herstmonceux, supplemented by courses by physics and mathematics faculty. The basic structure that developed over the next year or two was of three 24-lecture compulsory courses plus a number of optional 16-lecture courses, of which students chose to study two for examination. There was also a project, which counted for one-third of the weight.

The three compulsory courses were:

• Introduction to Astronomy (a general overview of observational material, originally given by Bernard Pagel and subsequently by Robert Smith, Nigel Holloway and others)
  
• Structure of Galaxies (which included Stellar Dynamics) (initially given by Donald Lynden-Bell; later by Robert Smith, John Barrow and others)
• Structure of Stars (which included Stellar Atmospheres) (given for a long time by Roger Tayler, from 1967-8 onwards)
  

A partial list of optional course's' given over the years, with the lecturers where still known, is:

• Accretion Discs (Robert Smith)
• Cataclysmic Variables} (Robert Smith)
• Close Binary Stars} (Robert Smith)
• Instrumental Astronomy (a 2-week residential course at RGO, taught by a variety of RGO staff)
• Mass Loss and Stellar Winds (Robert Smith)
• Non-spherical Stars (Robert Smith)
• Star Formation (Robert Smith)
• Stellar Evolution (John Hazlehurst, then Robert Smith)
• Stellar Hydrodynamics (Robert Smith)
• Stellar Stability (Robert Smith)
  
  

Undergraduate courses

Undergraduate teaching began in a small way, with one third-year option (Stellar Structure) taught by Roger Tayler, starting in 1967 or 1968. This was available to all students in the school (then MAPS) and proved very popular. Roger, until 1970 the only teaching member of faculty, also supervised third year projects in astronomy for physicists. He believed at that stage that it was not possible to study serious astronomy until the third year, after a good grounding in physics and mathematics. This view coloured the structure of the first undergraduate degree programme involviing astronomy: a degree called Physics with Mathematics and Astronomy (PMAst), where the astronomy content consisted of three third year courses in astronomy plus a third year astronomy project. The initial three courses were:

• Galactic Structure
• Interstellar Medium (this was only available to PMAst students; it was subsequently shortened and became a second-year summer-term course)
• Stellar Structure

Later options included Relativity and Cosmology.