• Around the World in 80 telescopes
  Behind the scenes of Around the World in 80 telescopes
• Sixty Symbols: Videos about the symbols of Physics and Astronomy
• This stuff is FAR!: The video to George Hrab’s theme song for the 365 Days of Astronomy
• The World Wide Telescope: an application that lets you explore some of the highest resolution imagery of the universe.
• La Repubblica features the Chromoscope
• Astrotagging explained: Astrotags are a new way to label your astronomy photos with their celestial subject and its location.
• PinpointWCS: This software simplifies retrieval of world coordinate system (WCS) data from FITS images for outreach astronomy images. Desktop planetarium packages aware of these data can intelligently position astronomical images on the digital sky
• IR Galactic Survey maps: A gorgeous composite of several infrared bands from two Spitzer Space Telescope surveys, MIPSGAL and GLIMPSE, that span along the galactic plane.
• Another Galactic Survey map: Map of the 24 micron band component of the MIPSGAL survey, which spans along the galactic plane.
• Planetario Economico: A cheap planetarium dome and projection system to build in schools. (PDF)
• LSST Science book: The Large SYnoptic Survey Telescope will observe the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade.
• Twitter feeds: Should we display the twitter feed live on a second screen?
• #dotastro: trending on SciencePond
• Supernova Factory: Discovery made with e-VLBI (PDF)
• e-VLBI: Live data form the e-VLBI network!
• European Very Long Baseline network
• EXPReS: Express Production Real-time e-VLBI Service
• the e-Astronomer: Andy Lawerence’s blog
• Galaxy Zoo Mergers
• Galaxy Zoo: Exploring the Motivations of Citizen Science Volunteers: Study into the motivations and demographics of Galaxy Zoo volunteers
• Citing and Reading Behaviours in High-Energy Physics. How a Community Stopped Worrying about Journals and Learned to Love Repositories

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“[In Australia] we measure population density in nanopeople per hectare” – Robert Hollow, PULSE@Parkes on the difference between where he lives and the Netherlands.

“The advantage of YouTube is that viewers can give comments. The disadvantage of YouTube is that viewers can give comments” – Amanda Bauer, University of Nottingham on posting science videos to YouTube.

“But you have no idea how many ends there are.” – Carolina Ödman, Universe Awareness when asked if she was burning the candle at both ends this week.

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The morning then proceeded with talks from Gijs Verdoes about AstroWISE and Robert Hollow about PULSE@Parkes. Gijs’ slides are already available online if you’re interested. Unfortunately these two talks were accidentally not recorded on on our UStream feed so they cannot be replayed.

After coffee we had a talk about Galaxy Zoo and the Zooniverse by Chris Lintott and Arfon Smith. They described the way that the Zoo has evolved and expanded in the past few months and how it intends to expand into the future (Moon Zoo, Crow Zoo?!). The video of this talk should appear after UStream is done processing things…

In the afternoon – after a sojourn to the outer reaches of Leiden University for lunch – we had our first Unconference sessions. The first of which involved 101 workshops in Python, Wordpress and LEGO NXT. The later session had participant-generated workshops and talks about APLPy and Radio Astronomy vs. Galaxy Zoo.

Links to participants’ posts:

AstroViz

Astropixie

Astrobetter

Starstryder

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P R E S S   R E L E A S E
————————————————————-

.Astronomy 2009: Workshop on Astronomy and the New Media

Next week, from 30 November to 4 December, an unconventional workshop takes place in Leiden, The Netherlands, to discuss novel concepts of thinking and working in astronomy today. Participants of the .Astronomy conference (read: dot astronomy) will explore new ways of exploiting the data deluge that will be produced by upcoming surveys and instruments for the benefit of their science and of society as a whole. Novel ways of communicating science to a wide audience have burst onto the scene in recent years: the web 2.0, blogs, podcasts and social networking.

Google Sky and Microsoft’s Worldwide Telescope have brought astronomy into the home with stunning elegance. No science is better suited to engaging the general public in real scientific research and discovery than astronomy. Examples of this are the hugely popular Galaxy Zoo project, or the increasing number of robotic telescopes made available to citizen scientists for scientific and educational purposes. Online communication and network-based technologies are changing the face of science, for professional astronomers as well as for the general public.

In 2008 the first .Astronomy conference took place in Cardiff. The second edition is taking place at the Lorentz Center of Leiden University. Some of the themes covered during the meeting are citizen science projects, new media for outreach and communication, network-based research tools and data visualisation. One day of the meeting is a dedicated ‘Astronomy Hack Day’ where the topics above will be explored in a hands-on way. Developers will brainstorm about new ideas and applications. One of the objectives of the meeting is to come up with a new citizen science project, where the general public is invited to be directly involved in producing new scientific results. The morning talks of the .Astronomy workshop will be streamed online.

E N D   O F   P R E S S   R E L E A S E
—————————————————————————————————

Contact:

Dr. Carolina Ödman
Tel: +31 (0)71 527 58 16     Mob:  +31 (0)6 41 275 298
E-mail: odman@strw.leidenuniv.nl

Dr. Sarah Kendrew
Tel: +31 (0)71 527 84 56
E-mail: kendrew@strw.leidenuniv.nl

Robert Simpson
Tel: +44 (0)7929 508961
E-mail: robert.simpson@astro.cf.ac.uk

.Astronomy 2009 is an event of the International Year of Astronomy 2009.

.Astronomy 2009 is supported by the Lorentz Center, NWO, ASTRON, the European programme RadioNet, the British Council/Platform Beta Techniek’s Partnership in Science programme and the Royal Astronomical Society.

Links:
http://www.dotastronomy.com/
http://www.lorentzcenter.nl/
Twitter: @dotastronomy
Blog: http://www.dotastronomy.com/

Original press release on www.astronomie.nl/
—————————————————————————————————

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If you’d like to pick up the previous conference proceedings then email Rob with the number of books you’d like to reserve and you can then collect them during the conference next week.

If you’re not going to be in Leiden you can still buy a copy. It will cost £16/€19 and you’ll need to email Rob with the number of copies you’d like and the postal address you want them sent to.

All payments need to made via PayPal or in cash at the conference if necessary.

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There will be various ways to engage with the conference online during the event, UStream, Flickr, Twitter and others that will be set up this week. If you are taking part and want to connect with us via these services then do it now so we can maximise the smooth running of the event itself.

Our morning talks will be streamed live where possible and this stream is available from the main page of this website under the ‘Live Feed’ tab.

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We have a series of breakout rooms, large- and small-meeting rooms at the Lorentz Centre. These will be used to facilitate whatever talks etc the group requires. If you’ve never been to an unconference before, don’t worry. The idea is that if you have a talk or workshop you’d like to run then you’re free to put it up on a large communal whiteboard. People will indicate preferences for talks and thus we will build up each afternoon’s sessions as the day goes along.

Alongside the unconference sessions we will also have 101 workshops running. These are beginners guides to specific subjects (e.g. Google Maps, Podcasting, Python) and are all indicated on the programme.

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Rob has this to say:

This is a blatant attempt at bribery.

Lego in the Age of Aquarius

The VOEvent working group has been shameless from the very beginning in seeking ways to promote its agenda of world dominion. An early notion was to build a LEGO NXT robotic telescope to demonstrate this IVOA celestial transient alert protocol. The initial prototype was shown at the Hotwired I workshop in 2007. This first model was joined by a second telescope by the time of the Austin American Astronomical Society meeting in 2008.

With two telescopes it is possible to demonstrate behavioral interactions as observatories pursue the discovery and follow-up of transient phenomena. Such interactions can be arbitrarily complex, but even a simple “Simon says” interaction as demonstrated in Austin provides the opportunity for rich discussions with colleagues on diverse scientific and technical issues. Ideally the robotic behavior would be explicitly tied via either pseudo or actual interfaces to other astronomical facilities such as provided through the Virtual Observatory, World-Wide Telescope, Google Sky or SkyAlert.

Indeed a third LEGO NXT kit was purchased with the hope of elaborating on the pedagogical behavior available in 2008. Circumstances intervened (including the departure of two successive VOEvent programmers at NOAO – for unrelated reasons) and this kit remains in the box.

The LEGO NXT kit is the bribe, offered as a prize to the best interface between virtual astronomical technology (for instance as displayed on a nearby monitor and/or handheld device) and the two model robotic telescopes. This simulation must be robust enough to be suitable for low maintenance, multi-day, multi-audience demonstrations. The intent is that I will deliver this presentation for the duration of the upcoming high profile AAS meeting in Washington, DC. Glory (and explicit credit) will accrue to all involved!

VOEvent is a technology for enabling autonomous astronomical architectures for pursuing empirical investigations. How can this be conveyed to the public, or perhaps even more challenging, to astronomers?

Hack day at .Astronomy 2009 is on the Wednesday. In support of this mission, I will be giving a talk titled “LEGO in the Age of Aquarius – Presenting complex technologies to diverse audiences” during the “unconference” sessions in Leiden on Monday or Tuesday.

If you’re interested get your thinking caps on and see if you can leave the meeting with a shiny new Lego NXT kit. You’ll have (free) access to Amazon EC2 and S3 and Google’s App Engine during the meeting (within limits!), access to Arduino microcontrollers and the tools you’ll need to do something interesting with them, as well as iPhone and Android handsets and their respective SDKs. Hack day may be on Wednesday, but you can hack all week…

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To give you an idea of what to expect, Sarah has put together a map, see below, of useful places and some local favourite hangouts.

We’re currently working on the conference programme and will be back with news on that in early November. If you have any questions or ideas, email us at poc AT dotastronomy.com. We want to hear from you!

View .Astronomy locations in a larger map

Getting there

At a stone’s throw from Schiphol airport and several major transport hubs, Leiden is exceptionally well connected to the world. If you’re flying into Schiphol, there are a couple of options for making your way to Leiden. The most convenient is to catch a train to Leiden Central (Centraal in Dutch), these run about every 10 minutes and take between 15 and 20 minutes. They usually leave from platform 5-6 and a single costs around 5 euro. You have to buy a ticket before boarding and there are plenty of yellow ticket machines and ticket counters in the airport/station hall.

From Leiden Central it’s a 15 minute walk to the Lorentz Center and a little further to the Bastion Hotel. Given the time of year, you can jump in a bus or taxi, both of which can be found just outside the station if you take the “Centrum” exit. The Lorentz Center website has detailed instructions and links to timetables.

You can take a taxi all the way from the airport to Leiden too of course, this costs around 40 euro. But the motorway is often very congested between Leiden and Schiphol so you may not save very much on time.

We’d also like to flag up some alternatives to flying for those who are green minded or don’t like flying. If you’re coming from Belgium, France or Germany we recommend you look into trains. The Leiden area is well integrated on the European rail network – to Belgium and France on the high-speed Thalys trains (get the train to Den Haag/The Hague and change there for a short hop to Leiden), and to Germany on the always efficient Deutsche Bahn services (change at Utrecht or Schiphol for Leiden).

From Britain you can get the boat from Harwich to Hoek van Holland, during the daytime or overnight, from where it’s around 30 mins by train to Leiden.

Local transportation

Leiden is well served by buses, which connect the centre of town to the surrounding villages and the coast. The Lorentz Center and the Bastion Hotel, where most of the out-of-towners will stay, are situated in the village of Oegstgeest, around 2-3 km from central Leiden along the road to Noordwijk and the coast.The Center is co-located with Leiden Observatory, the University’s astronomy department, in the oddly-shaped J.H. Oort building. Again, the Lorentz Center have all the info, directions and timetables on their webpages to help you get around. More bus timetables and travel info can be found here.

There is also the option of renting a bike from the Lorentz Center. This is by far the best way of getting around Leiden and its surroundings, as it’s flat as a pancake and bike rules the roads in the Netherlands. But bring gloves and wet weather gear!

Accommodation

The Lorentz Center will take care of hotel bookings at the Bastion Hotel, which is within walking distance from the Center (see the above map). If you want to look at other options, they can help you with that too so feel free to contact them at the address provided in the email confirmation you’ve received. A listing is provided here.

Eat, Drink and Be Merry

We certainly don’t intend for the week to be all hard work and no play – and Leiden is a great place for relaxing, having a little party, or having a big party – whichever you prefer. On Monday we will have a wine & cheese party at the Lorenz Center. This is usually an occasion to which the rest of the astronomy department, who are located in the same building, are also invited, to give everyone the chance to meet and mingle.

On Wednesday we’ll be having a conference dinner at Scheltema, in an old converted factory in the old town in Leiden. It’s a fabulous location that we’re excited to check out. We’re still finalising the arrangements for this and we’ll be back with info as soon as all is known.

The map above has a selection of local bars and restaurants with some local knowledge to help you make a selection.

Leiden is also connected throughout the night to Amsterdam’s Central Station.

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