 Today I’ll tell you more about 100 Hours of Astronomy (100HA), which I mentioned in my first blog. 100HA takes place April 2-5, and is the biggest IYA event this year—so there’s a lot to talk about. At the 100HA website you can see the program and schedule of events. April 2 is the opening event from the Franklin Institute, featuring their new Galileoexhibit (including one of only two remaining telescopes that Galileo used), followed by a webcast from science centers and planetariums in South Africa, Greece, Ireland, and Germany.
    On April 3 is an event I’m really looking forward to: “Around the World in 80 Telescopes”. This is a live 24-hour webcast from more than 80 research observatories around the world, with both ground and space based telescopes(see pictures of the Keck telescopes in Hawaii, and the recently-launched Kepler telescope above). Only one of these observatories is on Canadian soil, and I’ll leave it to you to find out which one! The first person to email me with the correct answer will get their name and picture on my next blog! (hints: see my last blog, and the picture above.)
On April 4, we expect to have the most people ever looking through a telescope in one day, during the “24-hour Global Star Party”. On this day, IYA groups will be organizing day-time and night-time observing sessions in many communities across the country, in lots of interesting places. You can check the 100 Hours website for events that may be happening near you and you should also look at the Canadian IYA website. If you’re organizing a 100 Hours event, it’s not too late to register your event on the 100 Hours site. Many groups are broadcasting their events on the internet, and you can see a list of some of those here.
Ottawa RASC group at Pinhey’s Point
Stargazing in
Asuncion
,
Paraguay
.
On April 5 we have Sun Day (on Sunday, of course), which is a celebration of our wonderful and life-giving Sun; you can find out more about Sun Day on the 100 Hours web site.
 Running for the entire 100 Hours is a very neat program: “100 Hours of Remote Astronomy”. Several observatories around the world are very generously donating time on their remote telescopes. This is your opportunity to control a telescope in real time over the internet, and to take pictures with it!. Click to find out more about 100HRA. I’m very pleased that there is a Canadian facility involved: MyTelescope.com, who are offering time on their telescopes in
New Brunswick
(pictured to the left).
So I wanted to give you a taste of what an exciting few days 100 Hours of Astronomy is going to be, and I hope that many of you will take part. I’ll be blogging during 100 Hours, letting you know about some of the Canadian events going on. You should also check out Cosmic Diary where Lee Pullen will be blogging live during 100 Hours.
Finally, please take lots of pictures at your 100 Hours of Astronomy events! And then send them to SkyNews with a report of your event. We’ll display them on the SkyNews website, and you could also win a Celestron NexStar 80 telescope! I’ll feature some of your pictures and reports in my future blogs.
Till next time,
Terry |
Monday, March 30, 2009