IAU Outreach Newsletter

May 2013

This newsletter will now once again be coordinated (for an interim period) by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Development on behalf of the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach - see Item 1) below for more information. If you have items you wish to include in future newsletters please send a short paragraph with a link to info@astro4dev.org. We will aim to resume a schedule of sending out this newsletter out on a Friday - frequency will depend on the amount of content received and the deadlines of that content. Thank you for your support in sustaining this international astronomy outreach community.

In this newsletter:

1) Update from the Office of Astronomy Outreach

From Sarah Reed, former IAU International Outreach Coordinator:

“I would like to take this opportunity to announce that I have now left the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO), for personal reasons. The OAO will continue, and a new coordinator will be appointed in due course.

It has been a wonderful experience to help establish this new IAU office, and I look forward to seeing the office continue to grow.

My friends at the IAU Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) have kindly offered to maintain this mailing list in the interim period. Meanwhile, I will continue to contribute to the IAU's outreach and development efforts via my roles within IAU Commission 55, 'Communicating Astronomy with the Public', and the OAD's Task Force 3.

I would like to thank everyone who has supported me in setting up the OAO.

Clear skies,
Sarah”

2) Call to Action: A Touch of The Universe

To carry out the “A touch of the Universe” project (see http://www.astro4dev.org/blog/category/tf2/visually-impaired/), the organisers still need to raise 3200 Euros. For institutions donating more than 1000 Euros, your logo will be included on the project’s website and all the printed materials of the kit. Every donation will be very much appreciated. If you want to help getting the word out please share this link: http://www.astro4dev.org/2013/05/26/call-to-action/

3) The World At Night (TWAN) photo exhibition in Japan, June 7 to 24, 2013

The World at Night first photo exhibition in Japan will be held June 7 to 24, 2013 in Konica Minolta Plaza art gallery in Tokyo. The exhibition will include over 30 large prints of images selected from the TWAN book. http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/news.asp?newsID=6081

The 2013 Earth & Sky Photo Contest selected winners from submissions by photographers in about 45 countries. The photos display the beauties of night sky and its battle with light pollution. Enjoy this contest video of the winners and the notable photos, in full screen with the sounds on, at the TWAN website: http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/news.asp?newsID=6081

4) CAP2013 conference registration deadline

Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2013 (CAP 2013, Challenges in Communication of Astronomy and Space Exploration) will take place on Oct 14th -18th, 2013 in Warsaw, Poland. The call for abstracts is closing on June 21st. Register at: http://www.communicatingastronomy.org/old/cap2013/

5) Seeing Stars SKA Art Prize 2013, deadline: July, 5th 2013

Seeing Stars is a celebration of art and astronomy inspired by the world’s largest telescope – the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) which will be co-hosted here in Australia. Using the inspiration of the SKA, artists and would-be artists are invited to create original pieces of artwork expressing the excitement and mystery of the SKA and its potential for discovery. Seeing Stars is open to 2D graphic mediums including painting, drawing, textiles and prints of digital art. Mediums not accepted include photography, installations or other craft.

Entries close at 11:59 PM AEST, Friday 5 July 2013.
More information at http://www.ska.gov.au/artprize/Pages/default.aspx

6) Zero Shadow day

Some 10 years ago Arvind Paranjpye, now Director of the Nehru Planetarium in Mumbai, India started what would later be known as the Zero Shadow Day at The Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, India (IUCAA). It has now become a major attraction with the press and public. The details of the experiment can be found here: http://skytonight.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/zero-shadow-day/

7) Film: Chasing asteroids at the South African Astronomical Observatory on May 31st, 2013

Have you ever wondered what happens on a typical observing night at a large observatory? Filmmaker Kai Staats goes behind the scenes at the South African Astronomical Observatory for you with this short film: "Chasing Asteroid 1998 QE2". Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qio2UaXTmh4

8) International Dark-Sky Association: free planetarium show about light pollution

From: W. Scott Kardel, Managing Director at the International Dark-Sky Association

The International Dark-Sky Association and Loch Ness Productions have created “Losing the Dark”, a short planetarium show about light pollution. The show is available at no charge. It introduces and illustrates some of the issues regarding light pollution, and suggests simple actions people can take to help mitigate it. The show gives planetarium and astronomy outreach professionals a tool to help educate the public about the problems of light pollution. The show is available for domed theaters and in flat screen in English, French, German, Hindi, Korean, Polish, and Spanish with more languages coming soon. More information and links for the free downloads is at
http://www.darksky.org/losingthedark or by contacting Scott Kardel at wskardel@darksky.org.

For more information, please visit: www.darksky.org

9) Upcoming events

a) Universe Quest – Building Games for Education, Jun 17 – 21, 2013
Location Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK
More information: http://www.galileoteachers.org/nuclio-a-gttp-comenius-and-gruntvig-training-courses-4/

b) World Conference of Science Journalists, Jun 24 – 28, 2013
Location: Helsinki, Finland
More information: http://wcsj2013.org/

c) RAS National Astronomy Meeting 2013, Jul 1 – 5, 2013
Location: St Andrews, Scotland
More information: http://www.nam2013.co.uk/

d) EWASS 2013 (European Week of Astronomy and Space Science), Jul 8 – 13, 2013
Location: Turku, Finland
More information: http://www.astro.utu.fi/EWASS2013/

for more events, please visit the IAU Events Calendar:
http://www.universedowntoearth.org/events/