Hi, my name is David Rosario I'm a
Research Astronomer at Durham University
I work at the Centre for Extra Galactic
Astronomy which is part of the
Department of Physics. I wanted to tell
you a little bit about what I do as a
research astronomer, how I got into
astronomy itself and how you might want
to bring a little bit of astronomy into
your life. As a research astronomer I get
to do a couple of things, I get to study
some of the coolest things in the
universe things out far out in space and
I get to do this using some of the most
advanced technology that we have at our
hands which are these large modern
telescopes. In particular in my field,
which is the field of supermassive black
holes, I try to understand how these
black holes change over time what they
look like in the early universe, what
they look like today and in order to do
this I get to use what I would say some
of the best telescopes out there which
are the ones in space, these are
telescopes that orbit the Earth or orbit
the Sun and they give us access to what
I call invisible light, this is light
that we can't see with our own eyes even
if you had a large telescope that was
sensitive to the light we can see with
our own eyes you wouldn't be able to see
this so-called invisible light. Let me
give you an example I tend to use
infrared light for my for my study so I
look at the universe in the infrared and
the infrared is sensitive to the heat
energy of some really cold
things like the cold dust and gas that
lies out in space and is spread out in
galaxies and around supermassive black
holes by looking in the infrared we can
study a different viewpoint and get a
different viewpoint see a different
angle for these objects and try to
understand a little more about their
heat content and how that changes over
the history of the universe, but if you
wanted to become an astronomer what
would you do? Astronomers of polymaths
we know a little bit about a large
number of different Sciences a little
bit of biology, a little bit of chemistry
at the core of all of this is a solid
working understanding of physics,
mathematics and these days a fair amount
of statistics and so this would be these
would be the subjects that you might
want to concentrate on if you want to
consider becoming a research astronomer.
.n your future. They're also fairly good
I will say as public speakers and this
is partly because we practice quite a
bit by giving presentations to other
astronomers about our research at
conferences and also talking to our
friends outside astronomy like
members of the public like you. I want to
share with you a story about how I
initially got into astronomy in the
first place how my interest was 
sparked. When I was about five years old
my mother came back from the library
with a book about the constellations and
the mythology and I was so hooked by
that she got herself a little notebook
and drew all these patterns and figures
and the names of stars from this book
and I had this little notebook with me
for well into my teenage years. When I was about 14
or so I realized that many of these
stars that you see in this book were
actually things I could go and see for
myself in the night sky so I would go
out on dark nights and identify the
stars and I grabbed myself a star chart
and a small pair of binoculars and I
learned a lot more about the night sky
now that and a fierce love for science
itself got me to where I am today and so
this is a way that you could bring a
little astronomy into your life, you
don't need a fancy telescope you don't
need advanced technology to start
thinking like an astronomer you can grab
a star chart from the internet, you can
get a small pair of binoculars and you
can learn a lot about the stars in the
night sky.
The way you do it is you don't just
return when you see a star you ask
yourself what exactly am I looking at?
how far away is it? what is this thing
that I see in the sky? so a little bit of
patience a little bit of curiosity and
pursuing some of these objects that you
see in more detail will really give you
a different sense of the night sky it's
not a flat plane with little faint stars
scattered about it it's a
three-dimensional view out into the
universe and getting that sense of the
three-dimensional space that you see out
in the night really changes your
viewpoint on where you are in the
universe a fun thing to do on a clear
night when it's nice and dark without
the bright moon is to grab a star chart
and go out try to identify some of these
stars and think about them a little more
detail. There are plenty of books about
astronomy plenty of material on the
internet there's a lot to learn and if
you do this I guarantee it you will
start to think a little more about
astronomy and how you could start
thinking like an astronomer.
So let me wish you the best of luck and
clear skies
