Current

I have been working as a school teacher since July 2002.

In my non-work time I maintain this site. This site (originally hosted at www.ozskywatch.com) was rated 9/10 by New Scientist magazine in November 2002. The site was moved to its current URL in October 2008.

As of January 2010 , I have been providing astronomy information via the WWW for thirteen years.

I am currently involved in organising the upcoming 2012 Queensland Astronomy Education Conference which will be held in Brisbane on Saturday 3 March 2012.

Past 'stuff'

Before being employed as a teacher, I worked part time as a 'visitor host' (glorious name for floor staff) at the National Museum of Australia.

For six years and a half years, I operated an education service in South East Queensland (trading as Southern Star Education - now closed) providing portable planetarium programmes to over 31,000 school and adult participants (1993 - 2000). The service visited schools from the Gold Coast through Brisbane through to the Sunshine Coast.

This website was originally established in January 1997 to provide astronomy information to schools I visited and to promote Southern Star Education. As part of my promotional activities for this now closed business, I initiated the running of Australia's first astronomy education conference (in conjunction with the Brisbane Astronomical Society) targeting primary and secondary teachers in 1994. This conference eventually became the Queensland Astronomy Education Conference and was convened four times. Information on the 1999 conference, the 2004 conference and the 2010 conference can be still found on this site.

Other ways in which I have been employed have included working as a casual outdoor education instructor at Knox Grammer School (Sydney), working as a guest activities officer at Binna Burra Lodge (Lamington National Park, Queensland), a shop assistant and a kiwi fruit picker.

The purpose of this website is to provide resources to both amateur astronomers (or stargazers...) and educators (be they school teachers, home schooling parents or staff at planetariums) on astronomical events that can be seen with the unaided eye.

I have a particular passion about helping people take their first steps in the hobby of astronomy. Astronomy can appear a little overwhelming at first but with a little help, you will be off and running before you know it.

Please note that resources provided on this site are copyright. I am happy to give you permission to use these resources for personal use or in your classroom. You do not have permission to sell these resources. If you wish to do so, you will need to contact me and negotiate a license fee.