Category Archives: IYA

Astronomy at the White House

Celebrating IYA with the President

Woohoo!  My friend Martin Ratcliff, who works for Sky-Skan, Inc., had the chance of a lifetime to share astronomy with the President of the U.S. and his family.  The White House had a star party last night, and Martin took a Sky-Skan digital planetarium system to show off the stars.  By all accounts, it looked like a great time!  Congrats to Martin, Steve, and all our friends at Sky-Skan — and a hearty “Welcome to the starry skies” to President Obama and his family.

What makes it even cooler for us is that we have the same planetarium system at Loch Ness Productions, and so in a sense, “our” system was in the White House.  Very, very cool.

It’s been a great two weeks of sharing astronomy for me, too.  I’ve been aboard the Coral Princess cruise liner, giving astronomy lectures and trying like heck to have a star party.  The weather hasn’t cooperated too much, but that hasn’t stopped me and the folks aboard the ship from talking about astronomy and sharing stories about the cosmos.  What I’ve found is that astronomy has the capacity to amaze and excite people of all ages — from the White House to a shipload of folks from all walks of life who are still wide-eyed about traveling — not just the seven seas, but also the universe.

Happy IYA all–keep the starry party going!

Listening to Stories of the Cosmos

365 Days of Astronomy

Astronomy Podcasts!
Astronomy Podcasts!

If you aren’t listening to 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts, you’re missing some really terrific bits of science storytelling. This project is a collaboration of many, many people (at least 365 and actually many more) who love astronomy and want to share it with the world. It’s also an official project of the International Year of Astronomy, which has a major boatload of stellar activities going on throughout 2009.  There are also IYA 2009 presences in Second Life, there’s the Space Carnival (I hosted Carnival of Space 88 last week), Zoo’niverse, and many other activities that you can partake of online or in meat space.  As it turns out, today’s podcast on 365 Days of Astronomy is the second one that we (Mark and I) have produced for the project. It’s called We are All Star Stuff. Go have a listen. And then, listen to as many of the other podcasts as you can — they are an absolute treasury of good astronomy stories.  In fact, make it a point to listen every day and you’ll be glad you did! 

Knowing and Saving Your Skies
Knowing and Saving Your Skies

As long as I’m talking about IYA 2009, another event for 2009 is the Globe at Night. It’s a project to count how many stars you can see from your home location, and people around the world have been doing it for several years. This year it takes on added significance with IYA 2009. It’s easy to do — in fact, there’s a web page with activities and instructions for families, classes, teachers — anybody who wants to help preserve our dwindling night skies. Check it out and get with the IYA 2009 program!