Motivations Survey

The scope of CosmoQuest is not just astronomical research. We love to learn how you learn and interact with the science as well. You may be prompted to take a brief survey about your attitudes towards citizen science, CosmoQuest, and astronomy. This survey is absolutely optional, but the results will help us to understand what makes citizen science projects tick and how we can improve them in the future. As a thank you for participating, users who have completed the survey will receive a link to special CosmoQuest video content not available to the public and a preview to our new homepage. We thank you in advance for your feedback and for helping us to further citizen science research! If you want to take the survey right now, click over to <a href=”http://cosmoquest.org/Survey”>to the survey right now.</a>

Educators in St. Louis Metro Area

Happen to live in our hometown? We’re putting on a professional development workshop for educators interested in using TerraLuna, our comparative geology unit to go with Moon Mappers, in the classroom. The workshop runs from June 17-21 and has options for continuing education or graduate credit through Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. For an application or more information, please email Georgia Bracey: gbracey [at] siue [dot] edu or see our blog post at the Educator Zone.

24 Hour Hangout-a-thon

It’s getting closer… Ever want to see what happens when you give two astrophysicists lots of coffee and see what they’ll do over a 24 hour period? Pamela Gay and Nicole Gugliucci are doing a 24-hour LIVE broadcast using Google Hangouts on June 15-16. This event will be a fundraiser for CosmoQuest to keep our project going (and our programmers fed) so get ready to do some PayPal clicking to show your support. More information to come, so RSVP to the Google Event for updates.

Upcoming Events (in the REAL World)

Where will we be next? Our calendar is a good place to find such information. In the coming few weeks, here is where you can find us out and about in the real world:

• May 15-17 – St Louis, MO – NSTA STEM Forum and Expo – Are you a science educator planning on attending the STEM Expo in St. Louis? CosmoQuest will be there along with our collaborators from the SIUE STEM Center. We have side-by-side booths at the Expo on Wednesday night’s preview and all day Thursday and Friday. More information about the conference can be found on NSTA’s website, and let us know you’ll be there on our MeetUp page.
• May 24-27 – Baltimore, MD – Balticon – This sci-fi/fantasy convention is chock full of writers and podcasters, plus our own Pamela Gay will be presenting and debuting our comic/activity book, Free Wifi on Mars. Find out more at Balticon.org.
• June 2-6 – Indianapolis, IN – AAS Summer Meeting – Nicole Gugliucci will be presenting results of our CosmoQuest citizen science motivations survey at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Indianapolis in June. Social MeetUp details coming soon!

Upcoming Hangouts

We strive to bring you entertaining and educational programming several days a week using Google Hangouts and YouTube. You can watch live and join in the comments or view the archived versions on YouTube. This week’s programming includes:

• Friday, May 17 @ 12pm PDT – Weekly Space Hangout – Fraser Cain is out of town, but Nicole Gugliucci, and a team of astronomers, space journalists, and science aficionados bring you this week’s top stories in space and astronomy.
• Sunday, May 19 @ 9:00pm PDT - Virtual Star Party – In partnership with Universe Today, we bring you a weekly tour of the wonders of the night sky thanks to a team of astronomers willing to share their telescope views with you. As always, this event is weather dependent and subject to a time change depending on conditions.
• Monday, May 20 @ 12pm PDT – Astronomy Cast – Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay record episode 302 of Astronomy Cast live on Google Hangouts and, afterwards, take your questions about space and astronomy.
• Wednesday, May 22 @ 4pm PDT – Learning Space – Next week, we’re talking about “astro-tourism” with Rick Feinberg, Press Officer and Education & Outreach Coordinator at American Astronomical Society.

365 Days of Astronomy Rolls on at a New Site

CosmoQuest is now hosting the 365 Days of Astronomy, a legacy project of the International Year of Astronomy. Listen to submitted content, submit your own podcast, or catch up on the audio-only version of our weekly Hangouts. This past weeks shows include:

• Thursday, May 9 – Planetary Society: Talk about Bennu
  
• Friday, May 10 – Weekly Space Hangout for 3 May 2013
  
• Saturday, May 11 – Dark Skies and Energy Education by Rob Sparks, NOAO
  
• Sunday, May 12 – 25 Years of Supernova 1987A with Pamela Gay and Alex Filippenko
  
• Monday, May 13 – Astronomy Cast: Ep 296 – Space Stations Part 2, Mir
  
• Tuesday, May 14 – MyMoon: Music, Science, and Space
• Wednesday, May 15 – Learning Space: Dawn science on Vesta

Thanks, and we’ll see you next week!

© Mnovelo | Dreamstime.com

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We hope to see you in your inbox!

UPDATE: We initially had the form in the WordPress post but realized after publishing that the form stopped working when we also put the form in the sidebar. We’re sorry for the inconvenience this conflict caused. -Pamela

Where We Are; Where We’ve Been

CosmoQuest launched almost a year and a half ago with Moon Mappers. You have since helped us mark over a million craters on the surface of the Moon! Our project scientists are currently working on the results to submit a paper to a scientific journal. But the mapping continues for new science down the road! In the first year, we also launched Ice Investigators, and you simply devoured all the data we had in looking for a Kuiper Belt object to be visited by New Horizons. The project still exists in archived form until such time as more data can be made available.

If you are looking for something really weird to explore, Asteroid Mappers features images from the Dawn Mission to asteroid Vesta. Today, we talked to some of the science team on a Google Hangout about their current work. Don’t worry, if you missed the live broadcast, we’ll be posting the archived version, as always on our YouTube channel. You’ve marked over 360,000 craters on Vesta so far, and we’re delighted. We currently have Planet Mappers: Mercury Edition in beta, so you can explore and map images of Mercury from the MESSENGER spacecraft, as well. We are looking forward to launching Planet Investigators soon, and this project will allow you to identify Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons in Hubble Telescope archive photos so that planetary scientists can better use this treasure trove of data.

Our education team has been working hard to make sure that you can use citizen science in the classroom, as well. TerraLuna is a three-week unit geared towards middle school teachers and is a comparative unit on lunar and terrestrial geology. The lessons can be used individually or as a whole and is aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards, the National Science Education Standards, and the Project 2061 standards. Engaging activities can be used in informal education settings, as well. While we provide teacher professional development opportunities with the TerraLuna curriculum, we will also begin working on a new unit that will explore asteroids and other small, rocky worlds in our solar system. The project’s working title? In-VESTA-gate!

The team is particularly focused on “guerrilla science outreach” where we take science to the people where they are! We’ve met hundreds of CosmoQuesters at events such as South by Southwest, Dragon*Con, MeetUps in various cities where we attend science conferences, and even at our hometown custard stand for Yuri’s Night. We’re happy to continue the conversation online as well, through the Forums, Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. We’re particularly happy to have you all on board as part of our community where we can learn and do science together.

In recent weeks, our funding status has become uncertain due to the turmoil happening at the federal level. However, we plan to keep CosmoQuest going with a combination of finding new grants, generous donations by our users, and upcoming crowdfunding and other fundraising events. Please stay tuned to our blog feed for more information, and thank you for all the support you’ve given us to this point.

“Gorilla” Astronomy, by Luke Davis

24 Hour Hangout-a-thon

Ever want to see what happens when you give two astrophysicists lots of coffee and see what they’ll do over a 24 hour period? Pamela Gay and Nicole Gugliucci are doing a 24-hour LIVE broadcast using Google Hangouts on June 15-16. We’re currently booking a bunch of exciting and fun guests to keep you entertained, and us awake, as well as dishing on astronomy, science, education, and whatever else happens to catch our fancy. This event will be a fundraiser for CosmoQuest to keep our project going (and our programmers fed) so get ready to do some PayPal clicking to show your support. Who knows, if we keep getting donations, we’ll stay on air for 28, 30, maybe even 36 hours? It all depends on you. More information to come, so RSVP to the Google Event for updates.

Online Course: CQX002 – The Sun and Stellar Evolution

We’re happy to offer an online class, taught by Ray Sanders, on the sun as a star and the life cycles of stars. During this 4-week / 8-session course, you’ll explore the Sun, and Solar Evolution from an astronomer’s point of view. The course will begin with an overview of the Sun, and solar phenomenon. You’ll also explore how stars are formed, their life cycles, and the incredible events that occur when stars reach the end of their lives. The course will culminate with students doing a short presentation on a topic related to the Sun or Stellar Evolution. Enrollment is open now for the class starting May 13th!

Help Us Learn How You Learn

CC Horia Varlan

The scope of CosmoQuest is not just astronomical research. We love to learn how you learn and interact with the science as well. In the coming weeks, you may be prompted to take a brief survey about your attitudes towards citizen science, CosmoQuest, and astronomy. This survey is absolutely optional, but the results will help us to understand what makes citizen science projects tick and how we can improve them in the future. As a thank you for participating, users who have completed the survey will receive a link to special CosmoQuest video content not available to the public. We thank you in advance for your feedback and for helping us to further citizen science research!

Upcoming Events (in the REAL World)

Where will we be next? Our calendar is a good place to find such information. In the coming few weeks, here is where you can find us out and about in the real world:

• May 15-17 – St Louis, MO – NSTA STEM Forum and Expo – Are you a science educator planning on attending the STEM Expo in St. Louis? CosmoQuest will be there along with our collaborators from the SIUE STEM Center. We have side-by-side booths at the Expo on Wednesday night’s preview and all day Thursday and Friday. More information about the conference can be found on NSTA’s website, and let us know you’ll be there on our MeetUp page.
• May 24-27 – Baltimore, MD – Balticon – This sci-fi/fantasy convention is chock full of writers and podcasters, plus our own Pamela Gay will be presenting and debuting our comic/activity book, Free Wifi on Mars. Find out more at Balticon.org.
• June 2-6 – Indianapolis, IN – AAS Summer Meeting – Nicole Gugliucci will be presenting results of our CosmoQuest citizen science motivations survey at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Indianapolis in June. Social MeetUp details coming soon!

Upcoming Hangouts

We strive to bring you entertaining and educational programming several days a week using Google Hangouts and YouTube. You can watch live and join in the comments or view the archived versions on YouTube. This week’s programming includes:

• Thursday, May 9 @ 12pm PDT – Planetary Society Hangout – Casey Dreier will be joined by Emily Dean, Pancam Payload Uplink Lead (Martian landscape photographer) on the Opportunity rover mission, which just celebrated its 9th year on the red planet.
• Friday, May 10 @ 12pm PDT – Weekly Space Hangout – Fraser Cain, Nicole Gugliucci, and a team of astronomers, space journalists, and science aficionados bring you this week’s top stories in space and astronomy. We’ll be updating you on this week’s rocket launches, hungry black holes, and more.
• Sunday, May 12 @ 8:30pm PDT - Virtual Star Party – In partnership with Universe Today, we bring you a weekly tour of the wonders of the night sky thanks to a team of astronomers willing to share their telescope views with you. As always, this event is weather dependent and subject to a time change depending on conditions.
• Monday, May 13 @ 12pm PDT – Astronomy Cast – Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay record episode 301 of Astronomy Cast live on Google Hangouts and, afterwards, take your questions about space and astronomy.
• Wednesday, May 15 @ 4pm PDT – Learning Space – Next week, we’re talking about astronomy outreach with Jake Noel-Storr, Director of the RIT Insight Lab.

365 Days of Astronomy Rolls on at a New Site

CosmoQuest is now hosting the 365 Days of Astronomy, a legacy project of the International Year of Astronomy. Listen to submitted content, submit your own podcast, or catch up on the audio-only version of our weekly Hangouts. This past weeks shows include:

• Thursday, May 2 – Planetary Society on NASA’s 2014 Budget and Planetary Defense Conference
• Friday, May 3 – The Weekly Space Hangout from April 26th
• Saturday, May 4 – Cheap Astronomy – Live at Mr. Stromolo
• Sunday, May 5 – Introducing Astrophotography and the Advanced Observer Program at Kitt Peak
• Monday, May 6 – Astronomy Cast Episode 296 – Space Stations, Part I
• Tuesday, May 7 – Observing with Webb in May
• Wednesday, May 8 – Learning Space on Space Apps and Hackathons

What’s Next?

The programming team is working to release version 3 of the site with an improved homepage layout and some minor adjustments to make your citizen science experience a little easier. There will be a few new features as well, so stay tuned to future newsletters for those announcements and to the YouTube channel for new video tutorials. We’re also gearing up to start a crowd-funding campaign to launch a whole new citizen science project within CosmoQuest. This project will be unlike anything we currently offer, so we’re super excited to get it off the ground, with your help! This and more coming in future editions of the CosmoQuest Newsletter. Thanks!

Silly and wonderful photoshop job Johnathan Chung.

One of our primary missions at CosmoQuest is to share science with as many people as possible. This means travelling to where people are. We’ve been weighing our reduced budget as well as our core mission and decided on our travel schedule for the rest of the year. We’ve had to cut down how many people we send to each event, but not as much the number of events, which is lovely. In some cases, this means we’ll be looking for volunteers for help us run a booth or table. In other cases, it just means we’re looking for dinner companions as we travel the world solo! In either case, we hope you’ll come out and meet us where possible. So, here’s the line-up as we know it so far:

Every even-numbered-Tuesday with good weather – Edwardsville, IL – Yes, it makes for strange selection criteria. However, if all of the above are TRUE, then you can bet we’re having a Star Party at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, our home campus. I’ll been running the star party this spring while the usual “star of the show” is out with an injury, but I hope to keep helping out through summer and fall. More information can be found at the SIUE Physics website.

May 4 – Edwardsville, IL – That’s this Saturday! I am doing a Family Science Day at our hometown library. Making a giant mess while teaching science is one of my favorite things to do, so come along and join me. You can find out more information about the event at the library’s website and let us know you are coming via our MeetUp page.

May 15-17 – St Louis, MO – NSTA STEM Forum and Expo – Are you a science educator planning on attending the STEM Expo in St. Louis? CosmoQuest will be there along with our collaborators from the SIUE STEM Center. We have side-by-side booths at the Expo on Wednesday night’s preview and all day Thursday and Friday. More information about the conference can be found on NSTA’s website, and let us know you’ll be there on our MeetUp page.

May 24-27 – Baltimore, MD – Balticon – This sci-fi/fantasy convention is chock full of writers and podcasters, plus our own Pamela Gay will be presenting and debuting our comic/activity book, Free Wifi on Mars. Find out more at Balticon.org.

June 2-6 – Indianapolis, IN – AAS Summer Meeting – I’ll be presenting results of our CosmoQuest citizen science motivations survey at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Indianapolis in June. Social MeetUp details coming soon! (Also, I’m currently booked at a hostel to save on costs, but if anyone knows of other accommodations, I would be grateful!)

June 15-16 – The Internet – Pamela and I are doing a 24-hour Hangout-A-Thon as a fundraiser for CosmoQuest! You can join from wherever you are, as long as you have some sort of internet connection. More information to come… I promise!

July 4-7 – Minneapolis, MN – CONvergence – Part-vacation, part science outreach, I’m coming to CONvergence to be a part of Skepchicon and all the science-y goodness that goes on at this Midwestern sci-fi/fantasy convention. I’ll be helping with science demos, panels, and the Skepchick room party! Stay tuned for more details as I get them.

July 8-12 – Finland – European Week of Astronomy and Space Science Conference – Apparently Pamela is going to Finland? I just found out about this possible trip, so I’ll let her fill you in on details a) if it becomes a reality and b) when it gets closer. Me? Oh, I’ll be in the Poconos with family, ignoring email for a week.

July 20-24 – San Jose, CA – Astronomical Society of the Pacific – Georgia Bracey and I will be presenting educational results from CosmoQuest at the ASP’s annual meeting. Come see our talks/posters if you are in attendance, or watch the MeetUp site for details on social events around the meeting.

Aug 28 – Sept 2 – Atlanta, GA – DRAGON*CON – Quite possibly my favorite event of the year, Dragon*Con is where we make our biggest public impact. However, we will be needing your help to staff our fan tables this year! Email getinvolved at cosmoquest dot org if you already know you are coming and want to help, and I’ll add you to our list of possible volunteers. Pamela and I have guest status and will be doing panels and talks with all our favorite people in the usual tracks, so follow the blog as we update with our final schedule as the date gets closer. And maybe there will be an Atlanta Skeptics Star Party again as well? It’s not my place to say… but rumors are favorable.

Sept 16-18 – Cambridge, MA – dotAstronomy – I’m going to the 5th dotAstronomy conference, a delightful unconference about ways to share and do astronomy with a bit of a hacker mentality. Hope to see you there if you applied, or see you in the area on a night off. What crazy shenanigans will we come up with on Hack Day this year? It’s anyone’s guess…

Oct 14-18 – Warsaw, Poland – Communicating Astronomy with the Public – Pamela is going to and on the organizing committee for this conference bringing together astronomy communicators from around the globe. More information can be found at their conference website.

Oct 19-20 – Seattle, WA – GeekGirlCon – While Pamela is conferenceing in Europe, I’ll be getting ready to spread the CosmoQuest love at GeekGirlCon, a conference in celebration and promotion of my fellow geeky females. With any luck, my panel and talk ideas will be accepted, plus you can see us at our exhibitor table. A bunch of my fellow Skepchicks will be in attendance as well!

Dec 9-13 – San Francisco – American Geophysical Union – To round out the year, Pamela will be presenting even more science and education results at the massive annual meeting of the AGU in San Francisco.

Jan 5-9, 2014 – Washington, DC – American Astronomical Society – Though this is technically a 2014 meeting, the AAS winter meeting prep all happens this year. Gear up for the biggest American astronomy conference where I’ll be presenting science and education results from CosmoQuest. Oh, and we’ll probably have a table in the exhibit hall, too.

There may be several other events that I cannot yet announce as they are being hosted by other organizations, but we’ll update the blog as needed when those come up. Plus, you can always check our Google Calendar and join our MeetUp group which I promise to keep a bit more updated than I have in my first year as a post-doc.

Thanks, and I hope to see you at one or more of these events soon!

Image credit: Silly and wonderful photoshop job by Johnathan Chung. Thank you!

Building our future (credit US Navy)

A couple week’s ago, I wrote a guest blog post for Global Astronomy Month that included the quote:

We are working to create a new world order where scientists find people in the general population … to make their science possible not through donations of funding, but through donations of thoughtfulness. We ask you to come click through images, mark craters, and help us be part of mapping our solar system and the universe beyond. (We will gladly take your money, but would rather have your mind.)

When I wrote that I imagined a world where NASA and NSF funding continued to pay our team scientists and programmers, and we transform your actions into new knowledge.

This new form of collaboration has radically lowered the cost of doing science.

But, it looks like it isn’t low enough. As you know, we are struggling to sort our future in the face of a Federal reorganization of how science, citizen science, and science education are funded in the US.

The problem is, NASA and many other governmental agencies are facing radical cuts to their science education funding. From NASA to NOAA to even the FDA, a massive reorganization is taking place, where the money is getting locked up in at the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and the Smithsonian. No longer are they looking to have scientists, science educators, and hybrids like me all working together to transform new science into new education. In order to try and save money, education is getting centralized far away from where science is innovated.

At CosmoQuest we are looking at very real funding delays and cuts as the programs we rely on to fund the education, programming and communications parts of our staff is reorganized and zeroed.

This started last year. One of the grant proposals we rely on is the NASA ROSES EPOESS solicitation. It was suspended last year, leading to programs like Astronomy Picture of the Day and my own education research program to not be able to seek renewal funding. We have all found ways to make do – reducing budgets and doing more ourselves (often without pay) instead of hiring students as we normally would. We were all counting on that grant call to go back out this year; my team is involved in 5 different grant proposals. With an end-of-May due date, the earliest we could really expect to transform these proposals (not all of which will be funded) into awards is January 2014, and the earliest I can transform that funding into salary is March 2014.

Earlier today we received official notice that this call is being re-evaluated: “Amended April 24, 2013. This Amendment puts the EPOESS program on hold pending review … The final disposition of the EPOESS program will be made public in early June by Amendment to ROSES-2013. If solicited, the proposal due date will be no less than 90 days from the date of Amendment.”  This makes May 2014 the earliest we could get a grant funded, and August 2014 the earliest that we could transform that money into salary. (Reference: see bullet 1)

A couple of weeks ago we heard from an NSF program officer that it was also unlikely, due to sequestration, that there could be funding available for us to seek an EAGER grant from the NSF to allow us to quick start science programs. The next major deadline for science funding is in November.

We are now looking at non-governmental grants, fundraisers, and corporate sponsors. So many of you emailed me that you somewhat overwhelmed my inbox. I plan to have everyone responded to by the end of Friday. Thank you for your help! It is making a difference. Just knowing how many of you want to help is truly making a difference.

I hate constantly nagging for money. I am someone that switches the channel on NPR during their fundraising week (I also donate randomly). While I’m not going to take that donate link out of the side bar, I do want to find ways for you to at least get Xtreme amusement from our fundraising. Here is what we are looking at for fundraising:

•  June 15-16: The CosmoQuest Web-a-thon. Join me and Nicole Gugliucci (a.k.a. the Noisy Astronomer) and a slew of guests as we go for a length of time to be determined by your donations! Minimum 24 hours … but if money keeps coming in (at levels still to be determined) we will go up to 36 hours straight! Mayhem, silliness, and SCIENCE! are expected.
• An organization (that I’m not sure I can announce yet) is planning a shiny charity event at an awesome time in an awesome place that will donate it’s proceeds to CosmoQuest. (email brainstorm AT starstryder DOT com if you want to do similar)
• in-progress: We will be launching a crowd-funding project (pending university approvals) to fund the creation of a new science program … or two ? We have two great projects we want to do. During the fundraiser(s?) Nicole and I will personally do daily YouTube updates of glory and silly that are **only for donors of any amount**. While largely related to astronomy, there may be the occasional horse wearing gloves.
• We’ve had more than one developer start feeling out the possibility of developing apps that would run a “Special version” that was astronomy themed and donate the revenue of buying that version to us (email brainstorm AT starstryder DOT com if you want to help!) and also 1 developer who may be developing CosmoQuest’s “do fun amusing things that aren’t science” apps that would then pay for CosmoQuest science.

We are also looking to apply to an NSF program with a July deadline that I think we have fair odds of getting, and one of our programers will be developing some apps outside of CosmoQuest that will then pay his salary.

We are going to build our future. We are going to find ways – silly, serious, and perhaps seemingly insane – to fund our future. And once we’re done funding our future, we’re going to keep going, and we’re going to try to grow our future and find ways to contract some of the amazing people who will lose their jobs in the current cuts and find ways to keep them doing amazing things to communicate science to you.

Build with us? Will you work with us to make a more scientific future?

Our lead programmer, Cory Lehan and I spent time trying to troubleshoot the issues we were facing, slowly excluding possibilities by testing fixes. There was one that we discussed in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion, but never really thought it would be the case. “What if we’re getting a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack?” It was tongue-in-cheek because we never really thought that someone would want to target CosmoQuest in a way that would try to take it offline. However, when we were getting frustrated and ran out of options to look, we ran some queries on the server and found that certain areas of CosmoQuest was being pinged upwards to 90 times per second– for weeks. I didn’t believe Cory when he told me that’s what it was, but I saw it for myself.

Immediately Cory and I went to work, attempting to mitigate the slowness being done to the site. Tweets were sent out, Facebook posts made, as well as Google+ posts were sent out and your responses, retweets, and shares were overwhelmingly supportive. Eventually we were able to get the majority of the damage controlled. In the process, Cory and I fixed a few of the other technical issues that were running in the background, including the loss of images/buttons from the forum, and authentication issues running with the Tapatalk application. As of this writing, the vast majority of CosmoQuest is running as it should be. We’ll be continuing to monitor the site more closely to ensure nothing like this happens again.

It goes without saying that we are all greatly appreciative of the support of all of you through this time. Also, the CosmoQuest Forum’s Administrators & Moderators have done a fantastic job staying in contact with me while I’m on the road, letting me know of things that are happening with the site. They perform so many tasks behind the scenes that are not seen, but though many would say their voluntary contribution to our community is a thankless one, it is the furthest from the truth. I know that if I did not have “Antoniseb”, “Swift”, and “ToSeek” as admin inside the forum, my tasks would be nearly impossible to be completed.

Thank you all for your patience during this difficult time. If you haven’t taken the time to thank the forum moderators or admin lately for the wonderful work they perform in the forum, please do.

My trip started from Bandung (A), West Java to Ngliman (B) in East Java. Credit: Google map

Last week I had a trip to a district named Ngliman in Sawahan, Nganjuk, in East Java to visit my close friend’s grandmother. The district is in rural area. Three days away from the city felt really great. Another friend of us, Ronny Syamara, an amateur astronomer from Jakarta, joined the trip to Ngliman. We went to Ngliman from Bandung and Jakarta by train and continue the trip by minibus when we arrived in Nganjuk, the nearby city.

We stayed in Endang’s grandma’s house and just right in front of the house, stood an Elementary School. It was a cloudy day when we arrived there, but when the sun gradually showed it face, we used our sun glasses to observe it.

This certainly attracted many students in the school. So we decided to set up the portable telescope we brought from Bandung which had been intended to support us holding a sidewalk astronomy and sun observation with the children.

They were very excited to learn about the space. That night, these children visited us at Endang’s grandma’s house and asked for another astronomy session. Unfortunately the sky was not so friendly at that time, covered by clouds. Thus, we showed them Stellarium, SolarWalk with several other short movies instead while also explaining the very basic astronomy concepts to them.

The children were enthusiast to learn astronomy and kept asking many things, especially about solar system, life in outer space and the fate of the Sun. Session ended after their parents came to pick up their children.

In the next morning, the children surprised us again before we left. They asked for another “astronomy story and astronomy application for their PC”.  We promised them to come back there with more books and better preparation during the next dry season so that we can have another night observation with them. In fact, we will arrange another astronomy session in Ngliman district by next dry seasons most probably during the school holiday season.

We will be back to do more public outreach with the school in Ngliman and nearby because in Indonesia, the education is uneven between big city and small city. Not to mention schools in villages.  What we saw in Ngliman, children were enthusiast to learn more about science but the school can’t provide books and other supporting facilities. Not just that, teachers knowledge are also uneven between those in big cities and small cities.  So we hope in our next visit we can share more and provide more hands on tools to the students and schools.

Here are some pictures from our astronomy sessions during my trip to Ngliman last week. Please enjoy the slideshow.

One of the legacies of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy is a yearly, global celebration of astronomy designed to promote the idea that we are all one people sharing one sky. Organized by Astronomers Without Borders, this 31 day long event invites you to join in with a whole variety of activities. Here at CosmoQuest, we’ll be participating in a number of different ways.

Calendar of Events

• Mar 31 – Apr 9: GLOBE at Night light pollution observations
• Apr 5: Mauna Kea AstroArt Presentation (20:00 – 20:30 UT)
• Apr 5: Dwingeloo Radio Telescope AstroArt Presentation (21:00 UT)
• Apr 6: Jupiter Watch
• Apr 7: SunDay
• Apr 12: Yuri’s Night
• Apr 14: No Gravity AstroArt Documentary (18:00 – 18:30 UT)
• Apr 20: Global Star Party
• Apr 20: “Le Voyage dans La Lune” AstroArt Film (18:00 – 19:00 UT)
• Apr 20-22: Lyrid Meteor Shower
• Apr 21: “Art After Sputnik” AstroArt Presentation (18:00 – 19:00 UT)
• Apr 25: 8 Years of Cassini AstroArt Film (20:00 – 20:30 UT)
• Apr 26: Serene Universe AstroArt Film (18:00 UT)
• Apr 27: Saturn Watch
• Apr 28: Cosmic Concert
• Apr 29 – May 8: GLOBE at Night

We are working on planning some specific challenges for the Moon Watch part of GAM, but… we’re still working on them, so stay tuned!

At ALMA with Tania Burchell of NRAO

Well hello, CosmoQuesters. I am finally just about done with pictures and video from my trip to see ALMA in Chile a few weeks ago. I still have some podcast content to cut together and post on our brand new 365 Days of Astronomy website, but I thought I’d share all the goodness so far.

As mentioned in a previous post, I was invited to join a group of journalists hosted by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) to visit one of the most badass telescopes around on the even of its inauguration. The Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array, or ALMA, is a radio interferometer that will greatly improve astronomers’ ability to probe star formation, planet formation, and the formation of galaxies. So, basically, it studies young things! This is a ground-based telescope on a scale we’ve never seen before, and for a fraction of the cost of your typical space-based observatory.

First, we spent a bit of time in Santiago, Chile, where several inauguration events were being held. You can find the pictures of our jaunts on Flickr and my blog post for Discovery about the Metro exhibit and opera performance. I hope I can slip a few seconds of the performance into my podcast, but the whole thing is under copyright, so you had to be there to experience it! How I’d love to see more public displays of love for science here in the US!

Finally, we got up to the Atacama Desert and the observatory itself for the big tour. Even though we only had a few hours at the high site, the actual place where the antennas are located, it was the highlight of the experience. Get a preview of that and some of the operations at the “low site” the day before inauguration in my “home movie” below.

I’ve also posted some quick clips of the antennas “dancing” to George Hrab and the robot arm mucking about. Though you can view all the pictures in one big set, I’d point you specifically to the highlights I collected for Discovery.

The day of the inauguration itself was full of celebration and speeches, but I was specifically interested in the new science results that were announced that day. With just the early science array, some truly impressive starbursts were seen in the early universe. This particular study shows the power of ALMA as a redshift finding machine for star-forming galaxies across a wide swath of the universe’s history.

I’ll admit. I wasn’t always an ALMA fan. The science to be done at that wavelength is fascinating, but after a decade of hearing how AMAZING a telescope that doesn’t exist yet is GOING to be… you get a bit bored. I wanted to see some action. Well, thanks to the NRAO, I HAVE seen the promise of the science and the amazingly precise machine itself. I’m a convert. I stopped worrying and love the ALMA!

Oh! I almost forgot. I got to do an impromptu Hangout from the operations site with Mat Kaplan of the Planetary Society where we interviewed a number of scientists and engineers on the ALMA project. I’m so thankful to our guests for sitting in on another one of our crazy Hangout experiments, and I’m glad those of you that did catch it live enjoyed. It’s still quite fun if you want to watch the recording:

I hope I got to bring you along on my journey in some way through these videos and images and blog posts. As a scientist and a fan of science, I can’t truly describe how awe-inspiring it is to see a big project like this actually come to life, to work well, and to anticipate its future. Who knows, maybe we’ll be able to bring some ALMA images into the citizen science fold one day. Would you like to explore the submillimeter sky, too?

The 365 Days of Astronomy Project began as a simple idea to publish one podcast, created by professional and amateur astronomers or astronomy enthusiasts around the world, for every single day in the year of 2009 International Year of Astronomy (IYA). Fortunately, what was meant as a one-year project as part of  IYA has ended up running for four years. Since then onward, there have been thousands of original, inspirational podcasts that bring the beauty of the universe to all listeners everywhere. During that time, the 365 Days of Astronomy Project has been delivering daily podcasts discussing various topics in the realm of astronomy. These include history of astronomy, the latest news, observing tips and topics on how the fundamental knowledge in astronomy has changed our paradigms of the world.

By the end of 2012, we announced that the project had come to an end. However, we decided to continue the project in 2013 from our new home in Cosmoquest. You can access our new home from the previous link which will automatically redirect you to the new 365 Days of Astronomy website.

Several changes have been made and we are now proudly announcing that the project has continued its journey with Cosmoquest. It is now accepting sign-ups for participants for more podcasts in 2013. Since its first year, the 365 Days of Astronomy has relied on dedicated podcasters across the globe who are willing to share their knowledge and experiences in astronomy to the world and it will continue that way.

In the early years, 365 Days of Astronomy combined new podcasts on weekdays with “encore” editions of the popular past shows on weekends. Contrary to what we did then, this year we will combine podcast from Cosmoquest and pair it with new one.

The 365 Days of Astronomy podcast is now inviting individuals, organizations, schools, companies and clubs to submit 5 – 60 minutes of audio or video as the “new weekend podcasts” which will be airing on every Saturday & Sunday. While on Monday to Friday, we will be airing podcasts from Cosmoquest and partners hangout. Unlike then, this year we are also welcome to any videocast to which we will only extract the audio from it and air it on The 365 Days of Astronomy.

The 365 Days of Astronomy podcast is heard by 5,000 listeners per day and by 2012 we surpasses 6 millions download. In 2009, the project was awarded a Parsec Award as “The Best Infotainment” podcast and a year later, in 2010, it was nominated for the “Best Fact Behind the Fiction” award.

The project is now accepting any financial support from individuals as well as organizations. The podcast team invites people and organizations to sponsor them by donating $30 to support one day of the podcast. A dedication for the sponsor will be announced in the beginning of the on-air show. It is possible to sponsor one episode per month for only $360. Alternatively, for a $100 donation sponsor shall get a dedication message at the end of the on-air show for a week. These donations are to cover the price for editing and posting of the podcasts.

For more information please visit:
email: info@365daysofastronomy.org
365 Days of Astronomy: http://cosmoquest.org/blog/365daysofastronomy/
Astrosphere New Media: http://www.astrosphere.org/
Join in as podcaster: http://cosmoquest.org/blog/365daysofastronomy/join-in/
Donate to our media program : http://cosmoquest.org/blog/365daysofastronomy/donate/