Outback Astronomy and New Media Astronomy

MWA

Dipole elements in the Murchison Wide-Field Array in Australia. Courtesy MIT Haystack Observatory and the MWA Consortium.
Dipole elements in the Murchison Wide-Field Array in Australia. Courtesy MIT Haystack Observatory and the MWA Consortium.

Some of my favorite folks in the world are working on the Murchison Wide-Field Array, a low-frequency radio astronomy project being built in the outback of Western Australia. I’ve worked on a couple of short projects for the Haystack Observatory team (in Westford, MA), and the array has been a long-term interest of mine for a while now.

So, it’s with great pleasure that I point you to today’s 365 Days of Astronomy podcast about the MWA. I wrote and narrated it and the music and soundtrack production is by Mark — including his wonderful original music.

Go check it out — we’ll still be here when you get back!

Astrocast.TV and The Astronomer’s Universe

Okay, now that you’ve listened to my golden voice talking about MWA, let me now point you over to Astrocast.tv — a project I’m proud to be working on as producer of a segment call The Astronomer’s Universe. Each month I and several other producers give you 4- to 5-minute-long in-depth looks at such topics as what professional astronomers are learning about the cosmos, what climate scientists are learning from the study of planet Earth, and what amateur stargazers can see each month in the night sky. Couple that with the latest astronomy and space news, plus a set of really nicely written blog entries by all of us involved in the project, and you’ve got 30 minutes or so of prime space media — at your fingertips!  It’s a pleasure to be working with the executive producers on this project and very exciting to watch as our viewership grows each month. So, go check it out if you haven’t already — and then go back the first of each month for a new set of space and astronomy stories.

It’s really a LOT of fun to be involved in such cool new media projects… I hope to do more of it in addition to my other projects (fulldome video shows, podcasts, and other media presentations).