By the end
What you'll build
- Read the night sky from your own city: identify planets, bright stars, the Saptarishi and a dozen more patterns in both modern and Indian traditions
- Explain the sky's clockwork — why stars rise and shift with the seasons, why the Moon changes phase, and exactly when and why eclipses happen
- Compute real rise and set times for planets with Python and the skyfield library, running entirely in your browser
- Track the International Space Station, read its ground track, and know when and how to spot it with the naked eye
- Choose your first observing instrument wisely, beat city light pollution, and keep a genuine scientific observation log
Curriculum
What's inside
5 modules · 26 lessons
- 01
The Sky as a Machine
6 lessons- Start Here: Your Map to the Night Sky
- The Celestial Sphere: A Dome That Spins
- Why Stars Rise, Set, and Return
- Sky Coordinates: Pointing Without Pointing
- Sky Arithmetic: Fill in the Blanksfill blank
- + 1 more lesson
- 02
The Moon & Eclipses
4 lessons- Moon Phases: The Month Written in Light
- Observing the Moon: Craters, Seas, and the Terminator
- Eclipses: When Shadows Line Up
- Quiz: The Moon & Eclipsesquiz
- 03
Planets & How to Find Them
5 lessons- Wanderers: Why Planets Are Different
- The Ecliptic Highway: Finding Planets Tonight
- Python Lab: Compute Tonight's Sky with Skyfieldpython lab
- Spot the ISS: A Space Station Over Your Headsat tracker
- Quiz: Planets & the Moving Skyquiz
- 04
Stars & Indian Sky Traditions
6 lessons- Star Brightness: The Magnitude Scale
- Star Colours and the Lives of Stars
- The Indian Sky: Nakshatras, Saptarishi, and Calendar Stars
- Constellation & Star Flashcardsflashcard sr
- Python Lab: Angular Sizes & Magnitudespython lab
- + 1 more lesson
- 05
Telescopes & Observing
5 lessons- How Telescopes Work: Light Buckets, Not Zoom Machines
- Your First Instrument: Binoculars Before Telescopes
- Beating Light Pollution: Observing from Indian Cities
- Writing Lab: Your First Observation Logwriting lab
- Final Quiz: Night Sky Masteryquiz
The shape of it
How this course works
Short lessons
26 lessons across 5 modules, each small enough to finish in one sitting.
Practice as you go
Every lesson ends with a small space for what you noticed — the doing is the learning.
A certificate at the end
Finish the course and earn a certificate anyone can verify with a link.
Ready when you are.
Make an account and this course opens up — your progress is saved from the very first lesson.