About this site

Who am I?

I am David Drumm, currently the Head of Physics at Stokesley School in North Yorkshire. I decided to create this site when we decided to start doing the Edexcel GCSE astronomy course. Anyone familiar to this course will realise that the structure of this site is very much based on the specification for the GCSE course.

I have created other website for GCSE Science, A level Physics and GCSE Applied Information Technology. I find them an excellent way of enabling students to study at their own pace and in their own time. Having a degree in mechanical Engineering I must admit that astronomy is not my forté though I have taught A level Physics for 20 years now. If you spot any mistakes I would be very grateful if you drop me an e-mail and put me right. (address below)

Copyright

• Many of the images have been taken from NASA web pages. I follow their guidelines on copyright as detailed on www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html.
• Other images used have been with the permission of the website I took them from, e.g.. sundials.co.uk and Freefoto.com.
• Stellarium is an open source copyright free program.
• Any diagrams or animations without a credit I produced myself using Macromedia Flash. I am happy for educators or students to use these images for any non-profit purpose.

I hope you enjoy this site and find it useful. Pass on any comments to Drummdavid@hotmail.com

Important - if you intend to sit the Edexcel GCSE Astronomy exam there is very little on these pages which you don't NEED to know to get a good mark. Of course you may read these pages for pleasure but if you do intend to sit the exam you should make a serious effort to get this information in your head.

The exam board recommends

I strongly suggest you purchase one of these textbooks to accompany the course.