Andrew Fraknoi

• Professor at University of San Francisco

We have recently turned the video recordings from the long-standing Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures, hosted at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, CA, into audio-only podcasts. To our surprise, the recordings have already been downloaded 150,000 times and, as of August 2024, we are seeing 2500-4000 downloads a week. We discuss how we make the po...

This brief guide explains some key factors for people who want to buy their own telescope, and has a list of links to reviews of some of the best telescopes for beginners. There are also links for finding a club of "amateur astronomers" near you. These clubs often put on star parties with their own telescopes,nd can let you "test-drive" a telescope...

Find this article at: https://baas.aas.org/pub/2024n9i037/release/1 The Solar Eclipse Activities for Libraries (SEAL) Project, organized through the Space Science Institute in Boulder and funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, distributed six million solar-viewing glasses, solar eclipse information, and other resources, through more than...

We list fiction, films, music, art, and other examples from the humanities that were inspired by total eclipses of the Sun. We also provide links to other such listings.

This large-scale eclipse engagement program focused on reaching underserved communities off the path of totality in areas not previously touched by NASA programs. In order to reach hundreds of thousands of people, a cadre of volunteer partners were trained to offer effective public engagement. The team enlisted trusted advisors to reach diverse vol...

As part of a larger outreach grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to the Space Science Institute, the two authors listed above committed to doing eclipse outreach -- nationally and locally -- for two different purposes: 1) to get the word out to educators at many levels and in many settings about eclipse science, safe viewing, and eclip...

This updated, 2024 version of my resource guide on humor in astronomy suggests both websites and articles that you can consult if you want to add a bit of humor (like an astronomical cartoon, for example) to your astronomy talk or class.

My eighth science fiction story was recently published, entitled "No One Bet on Canis Major," it is about a future in which governments allow "off-track" betting on astronomical events and it becomes very profitable for them. You can read it free at: https://www.sciphijournal.org/index.php/2024/09/30/no-one-bet-on-canis-major/

This, the seventh of my science-fiction stories (based on reasonable astronomy) to be published, was issued on the Web by Wyldblood Magazine on January 5, 2023. You can read it for free at: https://wyldblood.com/the-listener-between-worlds/ The story concerns an alien AI designed to search for intelligent civilizations among the stars, which disc...

This is a revised and updated version of my concise guide to responding to student and public questions about whether UFO's (now sometimes called UAP, for unidentified anomalous phenomena) have anything to do with alien spacecraft that are visiting planet Earth. The guide includes articles and videos (including a new Defense Dept. report) that clea...

This updated and expanded guide is a selective list of short stories and novels that use reasonably accurate science and can be used for teaching or reinforcing astronomy or physics concepts. The 23-page guide is organized by topic; so, for example, all the stories that feature reasonable depictions of black holes are in one place. 44 astronomy (an...

This 36-page, richly illustrated book explains the details of the two eclipses of the Sun coming to North America -- the annular eclipse of Oct. 14, 2023 and the total eclipse of Apr. 8, 2024. Written for librarians and library patrons, the book explains why eclipses happen, specifically what people will see in 2023 and 2024, and how to observe ecl...

On Oct. 14, 2023 and Apr. 8, 2024, the US will witness two eclipses of the Sun, the first an annular and the second a total. Over 500 million people in North America will potentially be able to see a partial eclipse. This booklet, designed for teachers and their students, explains what happens during such eclipses, gives the circumstances and maps...

This is the transcript of a talk I gave to the Commonwealth Club of California on the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most sophisticated telescope we have in space, and the first results and images from it.

This annotated guide features descriptions and links to free activities available on the Web about eclipses, the Moon, and the Sun. Most of the activities can be done in the classroom (middle-school and up) or in informal education settings. The guide concludes with links to some key websites where you can learn more about upcoming eclipses, and ho...

This is my sixth published science-fiction story based on astronomical ideas. You can read it free at: https://www.sciphijournal.org/index.php/2022/12/21/auction-prospectus/ This very short story, in an unusual form, explores the idea of "lurkers" -- possible alien probes that might be hidden out of our sight among the smaller bodies of our solar...

In anticipation of the 2023 and 2024 solar eclipses visible in North America, some members of the American Astronomical Society Eclipse Task Force asked for a guide to connect eclipses with such fields as fiction, music, films, and art. With help from a number of colleagues, I have now assembled such a guide, including both print and web resources...

This 2-page information sheet explains the lunar eclipse of Nov. 8, 2022 for non-scientists, including what's happening, the times for each US time zone, and observing hints.

This is a free introductory astronomy textbook published as part of the non-profit OpenStax Project (at Rice University), funded by several major foundations, to make textbooks available at no cost to college students. Electronic copies are free, and print copies can be produced at low cost. The book is up-to-date, authoritative, and presented in e...

The total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, crossed the whole width of North America, the first occasion for this during the modern age of consumer electronics. Accordingly, it became a great opportunity to engage the public and to enlist volunteer observers with relatively high-level equipment; our program ("Eclipse Megamovie") took advantage of t...

This is a concise (one-page) listing of websites that are especially useful for instructors of Astro 101 (introductory astronomy) courses. Focuses on FREE materials, including textbooks, lab activities, videos, teaching materials, and much more. Particularly recommended for people teaching their first course.

This article discusses living astronomers who are doing educational outreach by publishing science fiction stories based on good astronomy. It includes a table of all the astronomers I could discover who have published science fiction, and links to finding some of their work.

This, my 5th published science fiction story, was in "Theme of Absence" -- a web-based science fiction magazine. You can read it for free at: https://themeofabsence.com/2022/04/slow-time-station-by-andrew-fraknoi/ It focuses on using a black hole to escape the pain of a failed relationship.

This, free, online, introductory textbook covers all of astronomy at the beginners level. As of early 2022, it became the leading astronomy textbook in the US, with over 700,000 students having used it in over 1300 institutions. You can find it at: https://openstax.org/details/books/astronomy-2e The book is written in everyday language, with freq...

This is a brief review, published in the first issue of the IAU's Astronomy Education Journal, of my long-term project to create annotated resource guides for astronomy educators and their students. The college-level guides focus on a range of astronomical topics, such as "Women in Astronomy," "Science Fiction and Astronomy," "Black Lives in Astron...

After students learn, and do activities about, the ideas behind the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI,) and the messages we might send and receive, it's a good time to reflect about the social and political issues that might arise if we really do get a message from a civilization that lives around a distant star. This activity is desig...

We review some basic statistics about community colleges in the U.S. and about the teaching of astronomy in those institutions. We discuss some of the challenges, including the nature of the students, the lack of dormitories, and the use of "contingent faculty"-part-time instructors, who are paid less well, rarely given offices, and often have to t...

To see the blog entry, go to: https://aas.org/posts/news/2021/09/astronomy-free-online-astro-101-textbook The non-profit OpenStax project at Rice University, supported by a group of major US charitable foundations, is working to produce a free, professionally-edited, open-source, on-line textbook in every field in which college students take intr...

This short article, which can be found on the American Astronomical Society Education Blog, reviews the AAS Astronomy Ambassadors program, which has trained roughly 250 early-career astronomers to be more effective at outreach, and created a community of astronomers who do and value outreach as part of their careers. The workshops and resources tha...

NOTE: An updated version of this guide is available in 2022 at http://bit.ly/womenastronomers This guide to non-technical English-language materials about women in astronomy provides both general readings on the challenges and accomplishments of women astronomers and specific references to the work of dozens of women of the past and the present. I...

This very short story was published in "Flash Fiction," a British on-line magazine. You can read it free at: https://flashfictionmagazine.com/blog/2021/07/23/i-swallowed-a-martian/

I have been creating resource guides on a range of astronomical topics, designed to help instructors and students in introductory astronomy classes (but also appropriate for anyone with an interest in our exploration of the universe.) This paper is a brief catalog of all the current resource guides that are freely available on the Web. Each guide n...

For decades, the media have given enormous attention to sensational claims that vague lights in the sky are actually extra-terrestrial spacecraft. Recently, there has been a flurry of misleading publicity about UFOs on military photographs. A sober examination of these claims reveals that there is a lot LESS to them than first meets the eye: when t...

This short list, limited to sources available on the Internet, is designed to help you examine, with a skeptical eye, some of the specific claims at the fringes of science that are related to astronomy. Among the topics covered are: astrology, UFOs, flat-Earth theory, astronomical doomsdays, the "face" on Mars, creationist astronomy, and the sugges...

We explore the disturbing popularity of "fiction sciences," such as astrology, UFOs as extra-terrestrial spaceships, astronomical doomsdays, Moon-landing denial, flat-Earth belief, etc. Astronomers rarely learn about these topics in graduate school and are thus often at a loss on how to address them. Luckily, investigators from a range of disciplin...

We present information on the ongoing American Astronomical Society's Outreach Ambassadors program. Since 2013, the project has offered two-day workshops at AAS meetings to train early-career astronomers in effective school and public outreach. More than 250 astronomers have been trained so far, and are connected into an on-line community of scient...

We describe a project to publish a high-quality, professionally edited, introductory astronomy textbook that is on-line, open-source, and completely free to instructors and students. The text, published through the nonprofit OpenStax Project, at http://openstax.org/details/astronomy, now has had over half a million student readers, is used at over...

These days, as human civilization and electric lights spread across the globe, few places on Earth remain truly dark. For astronomers, trying to collect the faint light of distant objects, the “light pollution” from human activity has become a serious problem. This guide lists a selection of introductory, non-technical resources that describe the p...

This calendar lists, for each month of the year, some astronomical anniversaries and birthdays that are important for the history of our exploration of the universe. While many such calendars exist, this one differs by focusing on real astronomical research (and not so much on anniversaries of space travel.) And it includes a much more diverse grou...

The growth of the Internet has facilitated the easy availability of resources for teaching astronomy, particularly at the introductory level. This overview concentrates on those resources that are free or open access. Basic materials like textbooks, lab activities, and large numbers of astronomical images can be found, along with higher level items...

One key project of the International Year of Astronomy global effort is called ``She is an Astronomer'' and it highlights the important role that women have played and can play in astronomy. This brief resource guide sets out some of the printed and web-based materials to help educators and students explore this topic further. A more detailed listi...

This focused resource guide, "Black Lives in Astronomy," includes specific written and video resources about and by 25 black astronomers, as well as general materials to examine the history and issues facing black members of the astronomical community. It includes both older, established scientists and people early in their careers. It is aimed at...

A new (24-page) catalog of short, free, astronomy videos, organized to go with each chapter of the OpenStax Astronomy textbook (or any other textbook or syllabus). For those of us with limited capability to produce our own videos on short notice, this vetted catalog might provide useful short topical explanations to recommend to your students. All...

The 2018-19 school year was the 19th year that the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures have brought the latest non-technical information about astronomical ideas and discoveries to the region around San Francisco and San Jose, and, via YouTube, to the wider world. The project, jointly sponsored by the Foothill College Division of Science, Math, and E...

This article is in the form of a humorous, brief science fiction story about the first message we might receive from an extra-terrestrial civilization as part of a SETI search. You can read the story free at: https://www.sciphijournal.org/index.php/2019/12/20/the-unwelcome-reply/

This is a transcript of an introductory, non-technical talk I gave at the Commonwealth Club of California on our current astronomical understanding of the Moon, examining (briefly) its past, present, and future. It was published in "The Commonwealth" the Club's magazine.

This short guide list several dozen resources with astronomical humor, from cartoons and bumper stickers to the spectral type mnemonics competition and demented daffinitions. Some are on the web (and URL's are given), others must be sought out in printed form.

This guide to non-technical English-language materials is an introduction to the complex topic of the role of women in astronomy. Its main sections focus on women of the past and women of today and where students and teachers can learn more about their work. It's an opportunity to get to know the lives and work of some of the key women who have ove...

OpenStax (a nonprofit organization based at Rice University) has been working with senior authors Andrew Fraknoi, David Morrison, and Sidney Wolff, and about 70 other members of the astronomical community, to produce a competitive, free, open-source Astro 101 textbook. (This is part of a national program to develop free textbooks in every main fiel...

The teaching of astronomy in our colleges and high schools often sidesteps the contributions of cultures outside of Europe and the U.S. mainstream. Few educators (formal or informal) receive much training in this area, and they therefore tend to stick to people and histories they know from their own training-even when an increasing number of their...

I have collected more than 250 examples of music that are seriously influenced by astronomical ideas. I don’t include songs that just happened to have a cute title like “Blue Moon” or “Supermassive Black Hole.” Some significant astronomical concept has to be described in the piece, or -- in the case of instrumental music -- has to have been part of...

With support from the Moore Foundation, Google, NASA, and the Re- search Corporation, we were able to distribute 2.1 million eclipse glasses (and an extensive booklet of eclipse information and outreach ideas) to approximately 7,100 public, school, tribal and military libraries throughout the U.S. This project was the single largest program to prov...

This resource sheet provides links to collections of astronomy and space science activities that can be used in K-12 classrooms, introductory college classes, and informal settings (such as museums, fairs, family nights, etc.) 29 different collections of activities are listed. Together they provide many hundreds of hands-on astronomy activities.

I have compiled a new catalog of more than 250 pieces of music that were inspired by serious astronomy, from the realms of both classical and popular music. The music is almost always freely available on a channel like YouTube, and direct links are provided in the catalog. The list includes a Hubble Cantata, a Supernova Sonata, and Eight Songs abou...

This brief, and incomplete, selection of stories and novels with reasonable science in them is excerpted from a longer document in which I try to keep an annotated subject index to science fiction stories and novels with good astronomy. The full list can presently be found at: www.astrosociety.org/scifi This listing includes both works that deal w...

Project ASTRO is designed to improve astronomy education and science literacy in grades 4-9 by creating effective working partnerships between teachers/youth leaders and astronomers (both professional and amateur). Key elements of the program include: • training the teachers/youth leaders and astronomers together in inquiry-based “hands-on, minds-o...

With support from the Moore Foundation, Google, the Research Corporation, and NASA, we were able to distribute about 2.1 million eclipse glasses (and an extensive booklet of eclipse information and outreach suggestions) to 7,100 public libraries throughout the nation. It appears that this project was the single largest program to provide glasses an...

This document suggests two copyright-free images for each of the 110 objects in Charles Messier's catalog. Messier compiled this list of galaxies, star clusters, nebulae, etc. to keep him from mistaking the objects for comets. Educators often want to show good images of these well-known objects in astronomy classes, but may not have access to good...

This brief, but fully updated, version of my annotated list of resources to help educators respond to claims of astronomical fiction science (our very own plague of "fake news") is being prepared for the Astronomy Ambassadors workshop at the January 2018 national meeting of the American Astronomical Society. I am happy to share it with everyone her...

This article in the Astronomy Notes series gives information about the major non-profit project to develop a free, open-source, electronic textbook for the introductory astronomy course. Some 70 astronomers around the country helped the development and evaluation of this major new text. The publisher is OpenStax, a non-profit organization at Rice U...

This short article gives humorous definitions for many astronomical terms, including puns, double entendre's, in-jokes among astronomers, etc. You may want to read this at a time when you are not in public, in case you laugh aloud.

With the cost of college textbooks soaring, the author helped create an introductory astronomy textbook that's free for anyone to use. To see the book, go to http://openstax.org/details/astronomy

This video recording shows a presentation about the eclipse, moderated by Mary Roach, and including a wide range of good questions from members of the Commonwealth Club. You can see it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fLoKMstrP4

This Resource Letter provides a guide to the available literature, listing selected books, articles, and online resources about scientific, cultural, and practical issues related to observing solar eclipses. It is timely, given that a total solar eclipse will cross the continental United States on August 21, 2017. The next total solar eclipse path...

This popular-level article is a brief introduction to the August 21, 2017 eclipse of the Sun.

This popular-level lecture with information on the upcoming eclipse, when and where it will be visible, how to view it safely, and what is being done to help the public and the educational community to prepare for it, can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2Folgs58oI&t=1666s

This 24-page booklet is designed to provide public librarians and volunteers working with them information, safe viewing activities, ideas for eclipse events, and links to finding science-literate partners. Thanks to the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (with additional help from Google,) 2 million pairs of eclipse glasses will be distributed free...

Just in time for the “All-American” eclipse of the Sun on August 21, 2017, "When the Sun Goes Dark" gives the full scoop for kids ages 8 through 12 about why eclipses are so interesting and so beautiful. The book features hands-on activities for learning about the Moon, the Sun, and their eclipses that families can enjoy together. In 36 full-color...

We present a series of classroom activities about the Moon and the Sun in the sky that will help prepare students for understanding eclipses. These activities can also be used in informal science learning settings, such as after-school programs and museums. The Next Generation Science Standards recommend that students be exposed to three dimensions...

On Monday, August 21, 2017, there will be an eclipse of the Sun visible from all of North America. People in a narrow path from Oregon to South Carolina will see a spectacular total eclipse, with the Moon briefly covering the Sun, and day turning into night. Everyone else (an estimate 500 million people) will see a partial eclipse, where the Moon c...

As the public slowly becomes aware of the August 21, 2017 solar eclipse that will be visilbe in North America, there is a need for knowledgeable people who can explain the eclipse and prepare families and the public to safely view the event. Science teachers are among the people in the best position to be of assistance. They can help far beyond the...

This article is adapted from a commencement speech the author gave about the importance of skeptical thinking and fact-based reasoning. In a world where conspiracy mongers have huge internet audiences and facts seem to matter less and less, students need to be able to engage in critical thinking and to ask, about claims of all kinds, "Why Should I...

This listing compiles freely available laboratory activities that can be used with introductory astronomy courses, The list has three parts: 1) lab manuals (containing a number of activities), 2) individual activities for college labs, 3) individual activities for high-school labs that can be adapted for a college setting. The URL's for each resour...

This short science fiction story, my second published work of fiction, is in an anthology of stories all written by people involved in science,. The story is about the discovery of a galaxy which has too many exploding stars (supernovae) of a certain type going off in it to be explained by natural causes. The anthology, called Science Fiction by Sc...

This sheet of suggestions for how a scientist visiting a K-12 classroom can be most effective comes from the 25+ years of experience of Project ASTRO. In this project, coordinated by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, astronomers and amateur astronomers (after being trained with their partner teachers in a two-day workshop) adopted a 4th - 9t...

August 21, 2017, a total eclipse of the Sun will be visible from parts of the U.S., while all of North America will see a partial eclipse. This sky event represents a major challenge and opportunity in science education and this editorial discusses how teachers can use the interest it will generate to get students excited about eclipses, eclipse pr...

August 21, 2017, a total eclipse of the Sun will be visible from parts of the U.S., while all of North America will see a partial eclipse. This sky event represents a major challenge and opportunity in science education and this editorial discusses how teachers can use the interest it will generate to get students excited about eclipses, eclipse pr...

In this article, I suggest and briefly review 11 science fiction books, published in the last 25 years or so, that will be of particular interest to scientists. These books deal with "hard science fiction" -- which specializes in extrapolating rather than violating the known laws of science. Many are by astronomers or physicist, and use ideas and d...

This one page document lists astronomers -- alive and deceased -- who write science fiction. For each astronomer there is a one-line description, either about the kind of fiction he or she writes or a specific book or story collection that interested readers might start with. I welcome suggestions for other professional astronomers to include in th...

In this illustrated introduction we discuss a variety of musical pieces (both classical and popular) that were inspired by astronomical ideas, history, or discoveries. The pieces cited range from operas about Einstein, Kepler, Galileo and others, through the on-line Supernova Sonata and to a number of rock songs about black holes. We also discuss p...

This resource guide is designed to help scientists who want to do more or more effective public outreach -- whether it is to schools, museums, youth groups, community groups, service clubs,, festivals and special events, summer camps, or other public settings. It was compiled for the American Astronomical Society's Ambassadors Program, which trains...

This brief resource guide includes links to some of the best astronomy image repositories on the Web -- places where educators and astronomy or photography enthusiasts can find images of planets, nebulae, galaxies, and more. Most of the repositories provide images free of copyright, although it is always wise to read the copyright and permissions s...

Written for teachers, museum and nature center educators, youth group leaders, curriculum specialists, and teacher trainers, as well as for amateur astronomers who want to do outreach, this book consists of 45 hands-on activities about the Moon, the Sun, eclipses, calendars, the sky, and the seasons. Activities come with quite a bit of introductory...

This brief document, in the form of questions and answers, introduces the Aug. 21, 2017 eclipse of the Sun (whose total phase will be visible only from the U.S.) and discusses where and how to observe it safely and understand what's happening.

This brief popular-level article introduces the New Horizons mission to Pluto and some of the early results and images from our exploration of the Pluto system during the July 2015 flyby.

This is a first attempt at a listing of plays and films about astronomers, and books and articles (many on the web) about these plays and about science drama in general. No claim is made for completeness and additional suggestions for plays or resources are most welcome. Contact: fraknoi@fhda.edu SPECIAL NOTE in 2019: An enlarged, updated version...

Astronomy Education Review was founded by editors Sidney Wolff and Andrew Fraknoi and published first by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories and, later, by the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Tom Hockey served as editor in the journal’s later years. The journal’s full run of papers is preserved by the AAS at the Portico archive site....

In this short science fiction story by an astronomer, set in a future Mars colony, a worker takes an unauthorized trip to one of the caves that open on the flanks of the giant volcano Arsia Mons. In a chamber inside the cave network, he finds evidence that intelligent extra-terrestrial creatures had been to Mars long ago. The story setting (the cav...

For the last 15 years (with one year off for good behavior), four astronomical institutions in the San Francisco Bay Area have cooperated to produce a major evening public-lecture series on astronomy and space science topics. Co-sponsored by Foothill College’s Astronomy Program, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the SETI Institute, and NASA...

This brief illustrated guide, in the form of questions and answers, provides information about the 2017 total eclipse, which will be total in the U.S. and only the U.S. It provides tables of what will be visible in different cities, where the eclipse will be total or partial, and how to observe the Sun and eclipses safely.

If you enjoyed "The Martian" film or the novel by Andy Weir, here are some other Mars stories with reasonable science in them to enjoy. This listing is part of a longer resource guide to science fiction with reasonable astronomy at: http://www.astrosociety.org/scifi

One of the more effective tools for capturing the interest of non-scientists has been approaching astronomy through its influence on the humanities. In this article, I examine some examples of astronomical inspiration in the humanities, looking at plays, poetry and fiction which deals with astronomical ideas, people, or discoveries. The article has...