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This page points you to interesting and important links and resources.

1. The Solar System Live Webpage shows you were the planets are in the Solar System.

2. The WMAP website, with information about how we obtained the our picture of the Universe shortly after the Big Bang.

3. The Sand Reckoner by Archimedes (287-211 BC), who was the first person to think about really large numbers.

4. The 2dF galaxy survey was a large project to measure the distribution of galaxies through space. Their website gives a lot of interesting information about how the survey was carried out. Another big survey that is accomplishing a similar goal is the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

5. The first stars formed about 1 million years after the Big Bang. The formation of the first stars is now being seen in very detailed computer simulations. Find out about these at Tom Abel's website. He is one of the astronomers who is working on these simulations.

6. The Hubble Space Telescope website is a great resource. It is going to be especially useful now that we are moving through time from the Big Bang to the formation of the first stars and galaxies. To get started on the Hubble website, please read the full press release text that accompanied the announcement last month of the "Hubble Ultra-Deep Field".

7. The website for Sky and Telescope has many interesting articles about breaking news in Astronomy, and is also a good resource for information on your naked-eye observing projects.

8. Astronomy Picture of the Day has a new picture every day, along with a brief explanation written by an astronomer. Go back through the pictures from the past 2 weeks, paying special attention to the ones which show various kinds of galaxies.

9. Views of the Solar System website. A very rich multimedia site with a huge trove of animations, photographs, and information about the objects in our solar system. (too bad about the annoying ads, but a very useful site nonetheless).

10. www.exoplanets.org: Learn about planets orbiting other stars.

11. Transitsearch.org. This is a site that provides resources for amateur astronomers to discover transiting extrasolar planets.

12. Space.com - this site contains news stories on astronomy. Turn on your pop-up blocker, though!