Tonight I begin taking a four-week course titled Introduction to Astrochemistry from the Amateur Astronomers Association, Inc., taught by Samantha Scibelli, Ph.D. Dr. Scibelli gave a free two-hour presentation about EM (electromagnetic) waves for the AAA on Wednesday May 15. Links to the recordings of the free lectures are available from the aaa.org website, but at the time of writing, a link to this lecture is not yet available.

To prepare for this course, I looked for textbooks on astrochemistry. Among the resources recommended by Dr. Scibelli is The Astrochymyst website, which has a charmingly ancient 1990s design. The Astrochymyst site is produced by David E. Woon, Ph.D., who has collected information for many years on resources in astrochemistry. Among these resources, Dr. Woon provides a page that lists astrochemistry texts and books.

I explored the list of books and decided to purchase Astrochemistry by Olivia Harper Wilkins and Geoffrey A. Blake. This is a digital book from the In Focus series produced by the American Chemical Society, available only through the Google Play Store. The digital books in this series include links, videos, animations, and molecular models. The series is intended for readers of all educational levels to quickly (within four to eight hours) gain an understanding of a topic in chemistry.