Our Night Sky

This course offers
you a tour of the night sky and the constellations and other objects we can see
in the heavens during each of the four seasons of the year. The goal is to give
you a foundation for navigating the sky on your own with a pair of binoculars or
a small telescope. Along the way, you will also learn about the sciences of
cosmology and astronomy and a bit about the mythology of ancient peoples. We
selected Our Night Sky for our curriculum, partly in tribute to Aristotle who
wrote that  “Wisdom begins in
wonder.” Nothing quite stirs wonder like viewing the myriad stars and
countless galaxies of the vast night sky. It inevitably fills us with wonder
and awe – “What are we? What are we a part of? Where are we going?”
So the ancients wondered. This was also recognized in the Integrated Humanities
Program (“IHP”) at the University of Kansas in the  1970s, by Profs. Senior, Quinn and Nelick, in
that famous program, the motto of which was Nascentur in Admiratione –
“Let them be Born in Wonder.” Philosophy is thus born, and so this
course could be placed under the heading of either philosophy or science.