This course was a little disappointing. There's two problems, I think. First, the course attempts to give a survey of pretty much the whole of astronomy and cosmology in just a few lectures. There's simply too much material to give anything but the most cursory treatment. Second, the presentation style of just reading stuff off powerpoint slides is pretty terrible. There are some equations presented on the slides, by the lecturer neither derives them, nor shows how they can be used to do anything useful. Nor does he really get much into the question of how we know the things we know. Oh and the quizzes aren't very challenging at all.

If you're really interested in learning astronomy, the ANU Astrophysics program on edX (https://www.edx.org/xseries/astrophysics) is far superior. The four ANU courses cover almost everything touched on in this course, in much greater depth, and the presenters are way more engaging and entertaining and really give you an idea of how things are discovered in astronomy. And they get you doing actual calculations and solving problems. A far better investment of your time.

This is the worst teacher I have ever had on an online course. He seemed to know many things and being smart, but definitely he can't teach and make what he teaches interesting. I love this subject but he bores me and doesn't explain anything clearly. He just mumbles through some subject titles.

There are some errors in tests (i can remember minimum two erroneous questions, wich I answered the right way to pass, but those question were wrong). And there are many quetions about things that were not discussed during lectures and there were no hints were to look for answers. PDF helped, but not always.

Took this professor's course in Galaxies and Cosmology which was for 2nd year physics majors. I think this course is a more general course for non-physics-majors. Excellent course!

The course is fine, perhaps a little out of date, since it has not been updated for a long time. But the basic ideas, the concepts are broad and good. The teacher, I think he should explain looking at the student, not at the screen. He speaks like a preacher in church, reading from a predetermined script. One thing is to know and another very different is to teach, to divulge. It is on this last point where I believe, in my opinion, where such a magnificent course and content can be improved in its dissemination. Thanks to the University for the course.

This course was indeed a very amazing journey from our tinny Earth to the very beginning of the vast Universe.

The super modern Caltech Spacecraft driven by professor S. George Djorgovski seemed to go near the speed of light. Thank you and Congratulation to all the team!!!

Marcos Palazzo (from Buenos Aires, Argentina).

Wonderful course! A brief introduction to cosmology but with plenty of material to cover. I recommend researching for papers additionally to the material, but you'll need more time than 4 weeks.

Superb! Way beyond my expectations. It is wonderful to listen to someone who has such deep knowledge of his area of expertise.

The prof answered so many of the questions that I have had on astronomy. I am amazed at the progress that astronomy has made in the last two decades. It must be fantastic to study at Caltech.

Hope he publishes some more videos in the future.

It was a privilege to hear the exposition of Cosmology from this lecturer. He delved into extremely advanced topics in Cosmology whilst avoiding advanced mathematics but indicating the kind of observations that supported the theories and presenting simple models to allow interaction with the implications of the theories.

Excellent class! Lacking a background in Physics, I was lost in much of the math. But even without understanding the details, I felt privileged to get a glimpse into how scientists have come to understand so much about a universe in which we seem otherwise insignificant. Thank you!

Probably one of the best course for astronomy enthusiasts and i would say thanks to the professor for their commendable approach and overall it was an enticing experience and thanks again!!

An absolute wealth of knowledge crammed into a relatively short course. In addition it is beautiful. Teacher is so well informed and pleasant to listen to.

The course is really interesting in itself, would have been better without the anti-European comments

This is really an exciting course I chose. It's not easy. Sometimes, I felt and thought blank when I listen to the lectures as I knew nothing and had no idea about what was being explained.

However, by studying again and again, repeating myself on the previous materials, I could finally grasped some new ideas provided by this bright Professor.

I am so proud to be able to complete this course. I will keep all the lectures and will read them again to make sure I keep this knowledge in my memory long enough.

Lots of interesting knowledge in this Course, nicely presented from comets and planets to stars and stellar lifecycles, further on to galaxies, quasars and dark matter, to finally Big Bang, Inflation and Dark Energy.

Lots of facts are presented and adequately explained, not only to their nature, but also the important issue of "How do we know this, and how sure can we be?".

The exams focus on your understanding of the subject and how everything's connected, rather than the factual details or numbers.

The course is a good introduction to Astronomy and related fields. One may find it difficult to answer the quizzes but once you keep going along with the course, you will get comfortable with the course. I would highly recommend this course to anyone interested in Physics of our Evolving Universe!

This is a very wonderful course. First of all when I started to do the classes, it felt really difficult. But the professor is amazing and really I could learn a lot of things by doing this course. I will recommend everyone who loves astronomy or astrophysics to do this course patiently.

Excellent content, knowledgable and passionate speaker.

As a hobby only, I was able to progress qualitatively, without doing much of the maths, except in some weeks.

This course answered much more than I imagined there was to learn about; and so many more questions now open...

Recommended.

Need to review some question. Example: The universe is 13.8 billion years. No unit for computational question. Two questions for one field to fill.

A good idea to add an indication how to write an exponential number. Use Coursera tools to check if the answer is a number by student.

This is a very educational course.I came to know about various facts and this course is very helpful if you have your your interest in universe.all the points are explained in a very good manner.I thank professor Djorgoviski for this course.thanks caltech.

Great introduction to a wide range of subjects in astronomy. As an engineer with a keen interest in physics I really liked the focus on getting an intuitive understanding over rigorous derivations and proof. I enjoyed the course very much!

I really enjoyed each session, all of them were awesome, professor Djorgovski was an excellent tutor guiding wisely thru all the course. I fully recommend taking the course for anyone intrigued with the wonders of the universe.

Very well-informed course about the universe in brief, all the necessary concepts were taught well by the course instructor during the entire course. Will help majorly in my further career in the field of astronomy.

To try to compress the universe in only a few lessons is incredibly hard so we can only say this is an introductory course. I hope other courses are developed to explore this subject more deeply.

I really enjoyed every lesson. It's an incredible and very complete course. Anyone who loves astronomy should do it. In addition, I was able to improve English, which is my second language.