Mr Paul Curnow

Paul Curnow [B.ED] has been an astronomy lecturer at the Adelaide Planetarium since 1992. In 2002, he served as a southern sky specialist for visiting U.S. and British astronomers who were in Australia for the total solar eclipse. After nearly three decades of research, he is regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on Australian Aboriginal night sky knowledge; and in 2004, he worked in conjunction with the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center Planetarium in Ohio, on the creation of a show that features Indigenous Australian stories of the night sky. Moreover, from 2018-2020, he has served as a consultant on Indigenous Astronomy for the Australian Space Agency. In addition, Paul runs a number of popular courses for the general public that focus on the constellations, planetary astronomy, historical astronomy and ethnoastronomy, which primarily deals with how the night sky is seen by non-western cultures. He appeared as the keynote speaker at the inaugural 2010 Lake Tyrrell Star Party in Sea Lake, Victoria and in 2011 was a special guest speaker at the Carter Observatory in Wellington, New Zealand. Since 2012 Paul has taken the role of Lecturer for the ‘Astronomy & the Universe’ course (EDUC2066); and in 2019 for ‘Science’ (EDUC 2030) for the School of Education at the University of South Australia. Also in 2018, he was made an Honorary Life Member of the Astronomical Society of South Australia for his contributions to astronomy. Paul appears regularly in the media and has authored over 50 articles on astronomy.