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Fun
Lite Brite Video for Citizen Sky
We created a silly 6 minute video that describes epsilon Aurigae and the Citizen Sky project using diagrams made from Lite Brite pegs. Check it out and feel free to repost to other forums!Read more
Mini-Campaign on an Eclipse of Zeta Aurigae
Brian is leading a mini-campaign on zeta Aurigae. It is undergoing a short eclipse (compared to epsilon Aurigae) with a dip of only 0.1 mag sometime this month. Thus it will be quite a feat for even advanced observers. Up to the challenge?
Catch the "Demon Star"
Note: Next eclipse is Dec. 23. Algol, a.k.a. "The Demon Star" has some very well-timed eclipses for the month of December. It's a very bright naked-eye object and an entire eclipse can be seen in 4-5 hours. It's great training for epsilon Aurigae!Read more
March Contest: Win a Year's Access to Robotic Telescopes!
As March comes in like a lion, we bring you a contest to win a free year's access to AAVSONet, a collection of five robotic telescopes (soon to be six). All you need to do is keep observing any star in our 10 Star Tutorial. Read on for details...Read more
CS in the 2011 Science Olympiad Coach's Guide
(Update: The updated CDROM is now ready.) Donna Young, the Science Olympiad astronomy event coordinator, has completed a Teacher's Guide for the Citizen Sky project which will be on the next version of the Science Olympiad coach's CDROM. Next year's CD will be available in late summer or fall, but we have place the teacher's guide online right now. You can download it here.Read more
Looming Deadlines and an Update
A lot of activity has been happening behind the scenes lately with the CS staff so we have, for the most part, been hiding in the shadows. While I'm waiting for my collaborator on a separate project to call me, I thought I would take a few moments (which, in retrospect, turned out to be several few moments as you can see by the length of this post) to tell you about what is going on.
BrianRead more
Your Local Observatory
The last few weeks I've heard from several observers that they haven't been able to do any observing due to poor weather and I got to thinking: if we can't talk about our observations, why not talk about our observatories? So I've created a thread in the forums so that you can tell us about your local observatory and discussed the Sachtleben Observatory of Hastings College, my home-town observatory.Read more
Independence Day Eclipsing Binary Marathon
It's a 3-day weekend for those in the USA. So here is a list of some eclipsing binary stars with expected eclipses this weekend. They are mostly bright so can be seen with the naked eye or binoculars. If you are out this weekend, look up, make a few obs and report them!
For you morning folk, our friend Algol (Beta Per - the Demon Star) will be in eclipse the evening of July 3-4. Mid eclipse is around 4:30am eastern, but it should start dimming around 12:30am or so. You don't have to stay up all night to get the whole eclipse. Just getting the start or end would be fun enough. Algol's chart is in our 10-Star Tutorial. It's brighter then epsilon Aurigae so can easily be seen from the city. Read more
New Planetarium Show & Video w/Timothy Ferris!
We are excited to announce the debut of a 7-minute Citizen Sky planetarium show narrated by Timothy Ferris. Please help us share the word and distribute this video far and wide!
Mystery in the Sky Documentary
Click here for an important Sept. 24 update! An attendee of the first Citizen Sky workshop in 2009 produced a documentary of the project called Mystery of the Sky. I have seen it and consider it very professionally produced and impressive. The director/produder, Guustaaf Damave, is looking for backers to help fund the creation of the first run of DVDs. Click here for more information. The DVD includes interviews with participants at the workshop, both amateur and professional, and background material on epsilon Aurigae itself. As of this posting, the project has raised about 1/3 of what is needed to produce the DVD.Read more
