A Preparation guide for International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics
July 21, 2024 • 7 min read • views
Table of Contents
Update Nov 2025: Cleaned up (ChatGPTed) and added resources for both IOAA and IOAA jr.
Nepal is on the cusp of a historic moment as it hosts its first-ever International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) Junior. This event is a rare opportunity for young Nepali students to showcase their skills and compete with peers from around the world.
To help you make the most of this, I’ve put together a preparation guide based on my own experience. The goal is not just to “cover the syllabus” but to help you study in a way that builds real understanding and problem-solving ability.
A Brief About Me
I am a former participant of the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) 2021, where I represented Nepal and was fortunate to win a bronze medal. These days I’m studying Physics and Mathematics at Duke University, and my research is more focused on deep learning and quantum information — but my interest in astronomy has never really gone away.
This guide is a compilation of resources and strategies that helped me, updated to better match the style and level of IOAA (Junior).
A note on using resources
Olympiads are very different from your school or board exams (like SEE). Questions are rarely repeated, and they’re designed to test:
- your understanding of astronomy and physics, and
- your problem-solving skills and creativity.
Because of this, you need two types of resources:
- “Knowledge” resources — textbooks, lecture notes, videos
- “Problem” resources — problem sets, past papers, mock tests
If you only read theory, you’ll feel “smart” but get stuck in real problems. If you only do problems without understanding, you’ll get frustrated quickly. You need both.
A good strategy is:
- Spend some time with a knowledge resource on a topic.
- Switch to problems on that topic and keep going until you get stuck or tired.
- Go back to theory to clear your doubts, then repeat.
Over time, you’ll learn how much theory you personally need before problems start to “click”. That balance is different for everyone.
Make Your Own Notes
Get a dedicated notebook just for IOAA prep.
- Summarize key ideas in your own words.
- Collect important formulas in one place.
- Write down why each formula works, not just the final result.
- When you solve a nice problem, add a short note: “Trick: approximate sin θ, ignore small terms, use energy conservation…”
These notes become your personal textbook, and they help you connect ideas across different books and videos.
Also, Do not hesitate to change resources if you need to. You shouldn’t be married to just a particular book/playlist. As you go through a particular book (or youtube playlist), you will feel like you don't understand it anymore, and don't feel like working through (I’d say overcoming this feeling is the hardest thing to do, just push through). Switch up the resource at that point but keep working. In most cases when you change the book you re reading, you start from a easier topic which you might have already studied. This helps to re-energize your interest on the topic.
Learn to emphasize syllabus. Go thorough the syllabus and you should know at least something (few sentences) about every word mentioned there. However, not every section requires equal depth of knowledge. To better grasp on which parts you should work more on, work through the practice/past questions, and you will quickly understand the relevance of each topic.
But. These are mere suggestions. As long as you are investing your time for astronomy, you will be improving, and moving towards your goal. Also Remember, the goal isn't merely to win a medal but to deepen your understanding of the cosmos. As Rancho from 3 idiots says, Kamiyab hone ki liye mat padho, Kabil banne ki liye padho. Kabiyabi jhap marke tumhare pass aajayegi (Don't Study to be successful, Study to be knowledgeable, everything else follows).
A note on time management
You still have school, homework, maybe coaching classes. So how do you fit Olympiad prep in?
In my case, I was preparing majorly during COVID lockdown which made it easier for me to manage my time. But, even during school session you can successfully prepare for your Olympiad. I used to take my notes/problems to classes and work on them in between periods and on half-time. Try to spend more time for your olympiad as much as you can because while your school curriculum is important, olympiad prep will often teach you the same concepts more deeply. Close to school exams, you can temporarily shift focus to school; after exams, switch back hard to Olympiad.
Knowledge type resources
📚 Astronomy (Openstax)
📚Universe (Freedman, Kaufmann)
Both of them are similar books, you can choose any one of them and go through it. Do note that they are very vast, but they are very easy to read.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLybg94GvOJ9E9BcCODbTNw2xU4b1cWSi6 This playlist is also very easy to go through but not really rigorous enough, but extremely good starting point.
🎥 Michel Von Biezen https://www.youtube.com/@MichelvanBiezen/featured Scroll down to the section on Astronomy and Astrophysics. They are easy to digest and detailed enough to cover everything.
For IOAA jr. I would not ask you to read more than this. [Maybe you need to see problems and reach out.]
For IOAA start from the ones given earlier and do read rest of the following as well.
📚Introduction to modern astrophysics (Carroll)
📚 Fundamental Astronomy (Kerttunen)
Now these are the real stuffs. If you are preparing for IOAA jr, I wouldn’t recommend going through them. But, for IOAA you must at least try to read few chapters in them (First chapter is not that bad). I went liked Introduction to Modern Astrophysics (I’d say that Fundamental Astrophysics is tougher, but I went through it first, didn’t get much then went through the other one) I remember I struggled a lot on some derivation on second chapter (I think it was deriving Kepler’s laws from Newton’s ). Not having a mentor to tell you that you don’t need that is the hard part about preparing on your own. Do reach out to me if there something I can help (Maybe if people take interest I might select chapters appropriate for grade 11/12 students).
📚 Astronomy: Principles and Practices
Extremely good book, the real astronomy book. Teaches you good astronomy stuffs (but you need to go through earlier books for astrophysics), and easier than the earlier ones.
📚 Spherical Astronomy (W. SMmart)
Another extremely good book. Go through Chapter I and II
📚 Introduction to Cosmology (Barbara ryden)
Ngl, Cosmo might be the hardest, but it’s one of the fun topics with extremely cool (and high level) mathematics. But this book makes it tolerable. Go through at least few chapters. (I remeber struggling through chapter 5 even after 4 years)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpGHT1n4-mAuVGJ2E1uF9GSwLsx7p1xtm
Few few lectures are nice.
Here are my notes [Extremely bad, but you can look through] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c2e4j-xBAx00s4UidNowdWmSNkvyZAS6/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p2NV9SiaGIAFingvKYpI1kJJyaYTumNF/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tX0UoTmPKDABUhw9-CQ4hCL9wQRhTres/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ARILr1rD8Zkd8QCzG5QBPYoE57mRblVY/view
Observational
I struggled a lot with this. We had a whole session with Anshuraj Dai the night before observation round on IOAA 21. Here are some fun resources to go through: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tw-kx96Bjwy5FlbJL_E5L4AhsgA9ceFT?usp=drive_link
Some Data Analysis
I hate stats. Even now I hate it. But its easier than it looks. I liked this pdf. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1umHswmz1Gt2NqnASP69zKyxQFBVSBb9n/view?usp=drive_link
Problems set
The bible of IOAA – Aniket Sule Practice book. (Look for past IOAA problem sets)
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tq2ny9poNDVBt9vyJdirFPmH_agkm0iG?usp=drive_link
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tmZf7qoLemMCCFq9ZQXKuKDN1KEhoRTF?usp=drive_link
[I got lazy half way through please email me and remind me to update the rest.]
It might seem a lot, and it is but take your time, start as early as you can and get through them. Focus on learning the concepts, and solve a lot of problems you will do good on the olympiad. These are things I read through 4 years back. Things have changed now, especially with ChatGPT. Explore a little bit on your own, but you need to read and work hard to understand it. Good Luck!!