Tuesday, February 24, 2009

BWB events around the world

Australia - Donna Burton
Event: Live viewing (Sidewalk astronomy style) using 10" and 8*
dobsonians on the streets of Coonabarabran - showing Venus, the moon,
Saturn, Comet Lulin magellinc clouds and 47 tuc Orion Neb and whatever
lese takes our fancy.
Location: Coonabarabran


Brazil - Marcelo de Oliveira Souza

Event: Louis Cruls Astronomy Club
Public Observation – 26, 27 and 28 from 18:00h until 21:00h
São Salvador Square - Praça São Salvador – three Newtonian telescopes with 127mm
Jiri Vlcek Observatory – Observatório Jiri Vlcek – Newtonian telescope with 0.3m
Domingos Fernandes da Costa Observatory – Observatório Domingos Fernandes da Costa – Schimidt-Cassegrain with 0.2m (C-8)

The Observation will be transmitted by Internet .
Coordinator: Marcelo de Oliveira Souza (http://calc.zip.net )
Location: Campos dos Goytacazes – Rio de Janeiro – Brazil

Event: Campinas Municipal Observatory Jean Nicolini (Observarório Municipal de Campinas Jean Nicolini) -
February 26, 27 and 28 from 18:00h until 20:00h
During Venus Observation the team of the Observatory will tell legends, histories of Brazil folklore and curiosities about Venus. Will be used a Zeiss telescope with 0.5m. Coordinator: Julio Lobo ( http://juliolobo.blogspot.com/ )
Location: Campinas – São Paulo - Brazil

Honduras - Hugo M. Sanchez
Event: Public Observation session
Location: -

India - Nilesh Vayada
Event: Observation & Photography set ups will be put up for amateurs & public at large. Range of Telescopes, Binoculars, Camera.
Location: Mumbai (Bombay), India. (Please contact directly if you need resources for local set ups at other places)

India - Narendra Gor
Event: Venus Moon Observation with the help of Telescope Three Telescopes will be available for public to watch the events. We also invite other amateurs to put their telescopes at the venue.Night Sky Observation
Location: Near Hamirsar Lake (The Pride of Bhuj), Bhuj Kutch Gujarat

India - Amar Sharma
Event - Star Party. We are around 6 (maybe 2 more) confirmed people. I will get only my 25x100 binoculars.
Location : BAS, Banglore

India - Arvind Panchal
Event - The Amateur Astronomer's Group of Bharuch in association with Science community centre Narmada Nagar Bharuch organising a Star Party on 28th February 2009 (Saturday) at 7pm onwards. The programme is a part of Global Star Party campaign and will be celebrate by more than 14 countries of the world. The event will be web casted.
Programme: Night Sky Observation, Astro-Photography session,
Location Narmada Nagar Bharuch

India - Dr Suresh Menon
Event - A group of IIT ians along with some BAS members and some of my friends incl star party Vijay Kumar are meeting at Yelagiri on 28th evening with overnight observations and astrophotography.
Location: Yellagiri, Tamil Nadu

India - Srinivas Aundhkar
Event : Star Party and observtion of the Beauty Without Borders function. They are also making arrangements for the webcast
Location: Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Astronomy & Space Technology, ( Late Prof. N. C. Rana Memorial Observatory ) Near Airport, Nanded


India - Lawrence Dzouza
Event: Beauty Without Borders a global star party.
Locations: Astronomy Club, Ahmedabad would be putting up scopes at various sidewalks in the city and a few would be in school premises like Nelsons, Hiramani etc.


India - Mukesh Pathak
Event : Gujarat Nature Conservation Society (GNCS), Vadodara in association with The Amateur Astronomers Association of Vadodara is organizing the Star Party as a part of Global programme on National Science day eve. The program will start by 7 pm at Nature Education Park, Village Sindhrot, Dist. Vadodara, India.
The group is trying to arrange the webcast. Two amateurs Bhargav and Shreejit will handle this technical part.
Location: The center is an Environment Education Center run by Gujarat Nature Conservation Society (NGO working in Nature conservation and Environment Education). Is 16 km from Vadodara City. The Center is located in the forest of 35 acres of land having all facilities.

Indonesia - Avivah Yamani
Event: March 1st, 2009. Public observation and astronomical gathering. Starting at 5 pm in Dago Tea House ( this is a cultural park), so then we will invite all the people around to join us.
Location: - Dago Tea House

Indonesia - Aldino Adry Baskoro
Event: February 27th evening from 6pm until February 28th in Sekolah Alam (it is an elementary school) for the students and teachers there. Star Party and telescope session in an elementary school.
Location: - Sekolah Alam

Iran - Pouria Nazemi
Event: public star party including: observing moon and venus , give some flayers to people about IYA 2009, 100HA and venus and moon data on the 27th friday.
Location: Tehran, Sadaf Park - Heravi Sq.

Event: Star party in Zahedan on 27th Friday by Mehbang (BigBang) group at Zahedan.

Iraq - Azhy Chato Hasan
Event: Two teams to covering most wide area on Erbil city.
Location: Minaret and Shanadar Park of Erbil city atthe northern Iraqi region known as Kurdistan

Japan - Kazuya Ayani
Event: Using the 1-m reflector at the Observatory will be showing Venus and the Moon
Capella, M42, h and chi Persei, Saturn and more.
Location: Bisei Town in Okayama

Mexico - Miguel Leal Rendon
Event: Public Observation session
Location: -

New Zealand - Paul Moss
Event: New Zealand (Aotearoa) we are running a global star party at 8:30pm to 9pm after Pickle Pot at the site, or close by maybe at the beach.
Location: -

Nicaragua - Julio Vannini
Event: Best time for Nicaragua will be on Friday 27th, at 18:00 Local Time (0:00 GMT). The Moon and Venus will be at some 30 degrees above the horizon whit the evening sunlight fading away slowly. That would make the Moon and Venus a nice target for binoculars observation. At 1900 hours, Moon and Venus will still be above the horizon about some 15 degrees. Enough time and altitude for a beautiful event.
Location: - Managua and several other places

Pakistan - Khalid Marawat
Event: Public Observation session
Location: -

Philippines - Armando Lee
Event: Estimated 800+ students will get a view of planet Venus. They will be staying the whole night for an overnight Stargazing activity where I will be lecturing and showing IYA films and meteor exhibit.
Venus and the Moon. We will be using around 10 telescopes of different kinds (mostly with motors)
Participanting astronomers: Sidewalk Astronomers, AstroCamp Astronomers, and Philippine starmap author Bernie Esporlas.
Telescopes: W0 ZS80ed II on a CG5, Konus 8inch Newt on EQ5, Apex 127 on an ASGT mount, Apex 127on an CG4 mount, FS80wa on an EQ2 mount, ST80 on an EQ2 mount, N8 on Atlas mount, Meade 8on an Atlas mount, Celestron 80mm ED on an EQ2 mount, and a DSH10 dobsonian.

Location: Antipolo National High School Rizal Province

RUSSIA - Vladimir Krupko
Event: Public Observation session
Location: -

Sri Lanka - Thilina Heenatigala
Event: Public observation session. From 7pm on onwards.
Location: Piliyandala and several other places.

UAE -Nazar Salam
Event: Starting - 18:00 Emirates Mobile Observatory (EMO) will invite all the different sectors of the society as well as the police society to participate in our activities.
Main Targets: Venus _ Moon

Other Targets: M42, M45, M44, Sirius, and other using sky glow filter.

Telescopes: LX200 10” GPS (for Adults), Nextstar 4”SE (for short Children), Orion intelliscope Dob 10” (Deep Sky Objec- wide F.O.V) + Celestron 80mmED on LXD75 mount (For Live Show by Data Show).

Location: Abu Dhabi Chornich (Peach), next to Marina Mall.

UKRAINE -Denis Svechkarev
Event: Public Observation session
Location: -

USA - Donna Smith
Event: 7:00 pm, we will be observing during and after the planetarium show, which will highlight Venus. We will have several telescopes
Location: Drescher Planetarium at Santa Monica College.

USA - Katy Hugland
Event: Public observation session at Griffith Observatory
Location: Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, California, United States

USA - Mark Teran
Event: observation session in the corner of Wardman and Greenleaf, in Whittier, starting at
about 6:00.
Location: Wardman and Greenleaf, in Whittier

National Science Day in India - "Expanding Horizons of Science"

Gujarat Nature Conservation Society (GNCS), Vadodara in association with The Amateur Astronomers Association of Vadodara is organizing the Star Party as a part of Global programme on National Science day eve. The program will start by 7 pm at Nature Education Park, Village Sindhrot, Dist. Vadodara, India.

The center is an Environment Education Center run by Gujarat Nature Conservation Society (NGO working in Nature conservation and Environment Education). Is 16 km from Vadodara City. The Center is located in the forest of 35 acres of land having all facilities.

The group is trying to arrange the webcast. Two amateurs Bhargav and Shreejit will handle this technical part.

Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Astronomy & Space Technology, ( Late Prof. N. C. Rana Memorial Observatory ) Near Airport, Nanded, India will also be observing the Beauty Without Borders function. They are also making arrangements for the webcast. This is as per the mail received from their Director, Srinivas Aundhkar.

Astronomy Club, Ahmedabad would be having programs at various locations, mostly at schools. Similar program would be held in Bhuj, where the Kutch Astronomy Club, fresh from their marvelous Star Peace activity would have programs at half a dozen places.

It would be interesting to note that 28th February is being celebrated as National Science Day in India, the day when Noble Laurate CV Raman's effect was invented. The theme for this year is - "Expanding Horizons of Science", making it a fiting time to observe "Beauty without borders".

All these groups will work under the guidance of Confederations of Indian Amateur Astronomers.


Thursday, February 19, 2009

"And Now I am Galileo"

Its a Portuguese project entitled "And Now I am Galileo" This is an interesting project, involving children following the steps of Galileo in carrying out observations through out the year 2009. Its almost like making the children become a real life Galileo by carrying out the very experiments carried out by him 400 years ago.

By coincedience, the first observation program for this project happens to be on 28th February, 2009 and the activity is the same as "Beauty Without Borders ... an evening with Venus."

Though the difference is only in the name, the goals of both the project is the same as that of IYA2009 - Universe Yours to Discover.

Full details on this project is available at the following link

http://www.astronomia2009.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=38&Itemid=129

Beauty Without Borders featured on COSMIC Diary!






Cosmic Diary blogger Shashikiran Ganesh has written a piece about "Beauty Without Borders" project.

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One of the nice things about astronomy is that there are no borders in the skies. Interesting events happening in the sky can be seen by people from all over. There may be some variations in appearance - for example the celestial gathering late last year of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon appeared as a frown in the Western Hemisphere and as a smile in Asia.

Read more here.
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Shashikiran Ganesh is a scientist in the Astronomy & Astrophysics Division at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), India.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

An Evening With Venus

Join this event from anywhere in the world, even if you are going to watch from your deck or backyard. Use binoculars if you havent got a telescope.

Already 16 countries has got together to enjoy the beautiful views of Venus.

Start Time: February 25, 2009 at 7:00pm
End Time: Sunday, March 1, 2009 at 9:00pm
Location: Global - Everywhere, Your street or your event street, you choose.

Venus event;

The crescent Venus meets the new Moon, will be an awesome spectacle, seen and shared locally and globally. “On the evening of Feb. 28, the crescent moon will pass near Venus and will create a beautiful sight for sky watchers.” This event is a ‘mini trial’ of our new global organisational network for Earth Hour, Globe at Night, ISAN on April 4th and 100HA April 2nd to 5th, and Sun Day April 5th.