BWB in New Zealand

by Paul Moss

Friday night was completely cloudy and Saturday the clouds lifted for a few minutes to reveal the most beautiful sunset, but no venus or moon. Sunday was clear and I managed to show a german tourist venus and the moon, through both the C8 and the HD video camera (using eyepiece projection) and the still camera using prime focus.

However I talked about this so much over the last two weeks and shared that video, so I’m happy at this end. Everyone else in NZ was rained out for their plans, and we appreciate the reports from around the world. We learned quite a bit by sharing here, and being inspired to go and rehearse, and I thank you for that energy that you put in, I believe that we created a huge presence ahead of the main weekend. I’m really happy when I think about the longer future of astronomy, and how ISAN may continue growing each year.

I have attached the images that I posted up on facebook, I am happy to have them all posted to the blog site, and anywhere else. I’ve quite lost track of the whole picture, if any of you wish to copy and paste my pics please do, or suggest to me where else they could go. One of the best outcomes is my new ability to bring the moon to a big screen, in amazing glory! I plan to do just that for as many events as possible, live high quality video of a real moon. If its cloudy then recorded HD files. I believe that will have an impact on the street!

Event Host: Sharing Space www.astronomy.net.nz
Location: Porirua, New Zealand
Equipment: Celestron C8 (200mm 8in SCT) 2inch and 1 ¼ eyepieces, HD video camera, EOS20D still camera.
Events: Sunday 1st March 2009 8:30pm























Paul Moss

BWB in USA

By Donna Smith

Friday night (which was the best for us here in Ca.) was good despite the fact that our original plans had to be scraped. On our way to the planetarium, we got a call that it was clouded out so we turned back and instead went to downtown Burbank near the movie theater. We had about 120 people looking at Venus and the Moon before Venus fell below the buildings.

Saturday night we headed back out to the same location and we had about 100 people. Viewing wasn’t as good on Saturday, we were dealing with more clouds and Venus wasn’t as close to the Moon as it had been the night before. One really great thing, some people came up to us and asked what was going on and when I told them about BWB they started nodding and saying they knew about it because they had just been to dinner in Pasadena and the students from Cal Tech had a big BWB banner out along with some scopes. I didn’t know the kids at Cal Tech were going to do anything so it was a good surprise.

Because of the location, I didn’t have an internet connection. I did take some photos but not with a digital camera – I’m a little strange, I like to use those disposable cameras. I’ll post the photos when I get them developed tomorrow.

Donna Smith

BWB in Philippines

by Dr Armando Lee

Site: Antipolo National High School, Antipolo, Rizal Province, Philippines

Astronomers: Sidewalk Astronomers Philippines, AstroCamp astronomers, 2nd year RTU BS Astro Tech Students, and Mr. Bernie Esporlas

Telescopes used: 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, 5inch Nextonian on an EQ2 mount, Nextstar 8 on Atlas mount, Meade 8on an Atlas mount, Celestron 80mm ED on an EQ2 mount, and a 10inch Dobsonian.

Report:
Last February 28, 2009 the telescope viewing session coordinated by Dr Armando Lee for the 1st year High School students of Antipolo National High School pushed through as planned. Antipolo is a mountainous area just 20km Northeast of Manila and provide a view of the Metropolis of Manila like Griffith park which provides of high vantage view of Los Angeles.
As early as 5:30pm, all scopes and sound system were in place and ready for the night’s viewing. The planet Venus was spotted approximately 5 degrees West of the crescent Moon. Students who came in early immediately ushered to the school ground were 11 scopes of different make were waiting to be pointed to the planet Venus. There were around 300+ students when they first started viewing this gradually grew up to a crowd of 800 students when the Sun finally set and darkness set in. First scope which gave the view of crescent Venus was the 10inch Dobsonian manned by Dr Lee. The rest of the scopes followed as the crowd got bigger. Students enjoyed the fun of figuring out which scope showed which crescent object. They learned that Venus like the Moon can appear crescent like the Moon. The big crowd was managed easily by assigning one amateur astronomer to each scope and also by a big public address system (sound system) which facilitated control of a big crowd and avoided problems. Later, when Venus and the Moon set, the students were given views of the Pleiades star cluster, Great Orion Nebula, Beehive star cluster and the planet Saturn. Vangelis and Enya music were played while the students were struck by great awe and wonder while looking for the first time at theses celestial wonders. A short lecture explaining the constellations was given and short IYA promotional films were shown as well during breaks.
Viewing continued through the night until 12 midnight when the astronomers packed up the telescopes and left the students with their prepared program of singing and dancing competition.
The kids enjoyed Astronomy spiced up with music and dancing. Learning made enjoyable and of course easier with lots fun.

BWB in Japan

by Kazuya Ayani

On the 27th, no one visited us because of the bad weather.

This evening, i.e., on the 28th, the weather was not so good, but we watched Venus, Moon, Saturn, Pleiades and some other bright stars through thin cloud. About 40 visitors enjoyed Venus. "Looks like crescent Moon!". However, cloud became thicker and thicher, and at 21 o'clock local time, no celestial objects could be seen by the naked eye.












Other Japan BWB reports
Mr. Onodera at Sendai Astronomical Observatory, which had already sent
me a photo of star party, reported that they had 14 participants on
Friday, 247(evening) + 80(daytime) on Saturday, and 77 on Sunday
evening.

Mr. Kousaka at Toyama Astronomical Observatory reported that they had
51 and 32 participants on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

Mr. Tokimasa at Nishi-Harima Astronomical Observatory reported that
they had 58(daytime) + 80(evening) participants on Sunday.

We, at Bisei Astronomical Observatory had about 40 and 20 participants
on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.




Toyama Astronomical Observatory

BWB in India - Kutch Astronomy

by Narendra Sagar

The Program Beauty without Borders here in Bhuj went very nice. We put One Telescope and Two binoculars for the public.

The place was middle of the city near Hamirsar Lake.Though city street lights were bright we show Moon Venus and also Lulin late. People were exited to watch the Vinus as it was looking like Moon!!!

Nearly 70 people were get chance to see through telescope first time in their life.

We tried to live web cast the event. We were successful for few minutes but after that the battery of laptop gone so we couldn't continue.

There were seven children who are just wondering like beger and not going to school any time also get the chance to see.....









The helping hands were Vijay Vyas, Bipin Vakil, Miss Krupa, Manan Thakker, Rahul Zota, Piyush Parmar, Gunjan Doshi, and my wife Rasila Gor


Mr. Deep Mehta took initiative for live webcast

BWB in Nicaragua

-by Julio Vannini

On the evening of February 27th, the Nicaraguan Amateur Astronomers Society (ANASA for its name in Spanish) conducted the event "Beauty without Borders: An Evening with Venus" at several places in Managua, Nicaragua.



The main observation site was Galerias Santo Domingo Mall. Adelmo Sandino, Luis Rivas and Julio Vannini installed 2 newtonian reflector telescopes and aimed them toward the Moon and Venus. At first, both scopes were setup to their lowest magnification in order to capture
both the Moon and Venus inside the same field of view, allowing the observers to notice the shapes of the Moon and Venus at the same time.
The public crowded around the telescopes lined up in order to get their chance to gaze inside the telescopes.

Moments later, each telescope aimed toward the Moon and Venus separately so the crowd could see in better detail the shapes and surface features in the Moon and the Waxing Crescent in Venus.
Exclamations of woe and surprise were heard among the people that by first time watched such images live!

We experienced a remarkable surprise when we realized the presence of several astronomers from the Southern Cross Astronomical Society from the U.S.A. After exchanging several impressions and contact information, our new friends from SCAS left the place, carrying with
them a copy of the Astronomical Calendar for Nicaragua.

In the mean time, Dr. Rene Urroz took his camera and shot many beautiful images for the Moon and Venus.






















Julio Vannini

Brazil BWB

-by Marcelo de Oliveira Souza

Friday, February 27, we organized a public activity as part of the event "Beauty Without Borders". In our blog new images of Venus and the Moon and images of the public. We later also saw Saturn. 

Images of the event in our blog (http://calc.zip.net)

WE also had the support of the press. I gave a live interview in one of the most famous TV channel of our region in Brazil and they produced a video in the moment we were doing the activity. They will show this video today. With a new invitation to people join us today.