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100 Hours of Astronomy, 80 telescopes, international year of astronomy

100 Hours of Astronomy

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A Global Astronomy Event

It has begun! 100 Hours of Astronomy, a global celebration of astronomy (part of the International Year of Astronomy) is underway.  It began today (April 2) and continues through April 5 (Sunday).

What’s available?  Why, the universe, of course!

There are free public activities going on around the world, ranging from star parties to lectures to an innovative 80-telescope tour of the world’s major observatories, and many, many other events.  To catch up with what’s going on, head over to the 100 Hours of Astronomy web site (it’s quite popular right now) and check out the list of events. I’m particularly impressed with the Google-based world map of events that are happening — and it’s interactive, so all you have to do is click on a push pin and get info about that particular event.

If you want to do a little stargazing (what a cool idea, eh?) there’s a 24-Hour Global Star Party on April 4.  It begins at sunset, your local time (wherever you are).  There’s also something called 100 Hours of Remote Astronomy.

There’s more astronomy going on in the next few days than you can shake a stick at — so, go check it all out!

NOTE: since I wrote this entry (Thursday night), the pages for 100 Hours have changed and links to the Global Star Party and other events are no longer available. I suspect this is due to over-loaded servers. This event is proving very popular!  The link above takes you to the 80 Telescopes page, where there are ongoing videos all day through Saturday morning.

astronomy groups and organizations, galileoscope, international year of astronomy

A Scope in Every Pot

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The Galileoscope Project

One of the most visible parts of the International Year of Astronomy is the Galileoscope. It’s a high-quality telescope that gives a viewer about the same view that astronomer Galileo Galilei had in 1609.  If that sounds a bit “meh” in these times of mega-scopes and super-GOTO mounts and the Web, consider this:  most kids (and adults, really) have never looked through any kind of telescope.  The most contact with the sky a lot of people have is maybe glancing up at the stars as they go outside to the car at night, or they search out something on the Web for the kids’ science fair project.

The Galileoscope.
The Galileoscope.

The Galileoscope gives everybody a chance to have the experience of looking through a telescope and seeing something in the sky that they have never seen before in just that way.  And, there’s a LOT to be said for that experience. It’s like the difference between seeing a picture of an apple and eating one. Or, the difference between reading a play in lit class or actually seeing and hearing it performed live.  Or, the difference between watching someone hug someone else or hugging someone yourself.

The scope (which you can see above) is easy to put together. The best part is, it only costs $15.00.  Now, you’ve probably seen (and heard) me and others with our mantra of “cheap scopes aren’t worth it.”  Well, there’s cheap and then there’s cheap. If you think of department store scopes with wobbly mounts and crappy lenses, then yeah, that’s cheap.  But, while this scope is inexpensive (money-cheap), it has been put together by folks (Rick Fienberg, former editor of Sky & Telescope, Steve Pompea, Hans Hansen and others) who were able to insist on really high-quality work — and it shows. It lets you look at the Moon and Jupiter and a number of other easily found objects. It lets a viewer have that “Galileo moment” that changed everything for astronomy.

There are already a number of educational packets put together to help teachers whose students are putting these together as class optics projects.  And, the best part is, they’re easy to use and they really DO give people a real experience at sky viewing.  And, since astronomy is one of those sciences that really hooks people — it’s a leg up into a real learning experience at any age.

So, check it out. You can buy as many as you want at $15.00 each — at that price you could buy some for yourself and your family and maybe get one or two to donate to local schools or children’s groups.  Give the gift of the sky to yourself and others! Let’s get a scope in every backyard, every schoolyard, and as many street corners as we can!