I have very fond memories of Douglas Gough telling us about the launch of SoHo, Gerry Gilmore describing his experiences of having to talk to a fast asleep Patrick Moore on The Sky at Night, and Andy Fabian arranging for us to use the Northumberland to observe Venus. I also recall a really cool lecture on tides given by a Dr C Clarke in the Fluid Dynamics course.

I remember vividly the sense of awe in discovering cool facts about how the universe works in every lecture, the feeling of being at the cutting edge of new discoveries (I recall being shown the Hubble deep field image shortly after it came out), and our lecturers’ enthusiasm for getting us engaged with the subject including organising a trip to the observatory when they discovered many of us had never actually looked through a telescope before. My strongest memories are of the friendliness and community feel of the IoA, which was a pleasant contrast with the impersonality of my previous huge Maths lectures. The undergrads used to have a coffee break between lectures along with the rest of the department, and the start of our 2nd lecture was determined by when everyone had finished their drinks rather than by the clock!