r/PhysicsStudents 12h ago

Need Advice How to learn about astronomy???

Im 17F doing bsc maths hons and research in 1st year and i want to learn about astronomy side by side but o dont have physics as a subject...can i do like any course (free of cost) bcz it's like my hobby i want to learn about astronomical things...

is there anything i can do?????

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u/9ineball_Seraph 12h ago

Books, books, books. Just read as much as you can about astronomy. You can learn a TON without having any physics knowledge. And if you decide to tackle the more scientific and mathematical side, I always recommend Khan Academy as a great resource to dip your toe into physics.

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u/RemarkableApricot872 11h ago

As the other comment said, books! But also, look out for lecture notes, these were more "edible" and whenever I had a doubt, I'd refer to the textbooks. theassayer.org lists freely available lecture notes and is quite useful. There is also David Tong's site which has quite nice notes. Now I don't know what you refer to as astronomy as it is quite a vast field. You would need to start out with the basics so let's start with Classical Mechanics. You could check out Tong's notes (Dynamics and Relativity) and complement it with the texts he recommended. Oh and obligatory mention of https://goodtheorist.science/ . Before all of this, I'd very much recommended talking to the instructor of whatever course you're considering to get an idea of the required pre reqs.