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Fun
Online streaming of dissertation defense about Citizen Sky
Aaron's dissertation is about change in scientific literacy of Citizen Sky participants. His defense is November 1 and will be broadcast online via U-Stream. Click for more information.Read more
Distribution of Planetarium Video Underway
We are ready to distribute the Timothy Ferris Citizen Sky 6-minute planetarium trailer to theaters interested in showing it. Click for more information.
Click here for background information on the show and to view it via YouTube. But remember that YouTube's small screen doesn't do it justice. The Cal Academies rendered a beautiful show that excels on the big screen.
Versions of the planetarium show have been sent to all of the major planetarium manufacturers and content distributors. You should be able to contact your vendor of choice for a copy. They should be free to use.
Please contact us if you plan to show the video!! It will help us greatly if we can give the National Science Foundation a report of how many theaters are showing the video! Just e-mail info@citizensky.org or use this feedback form.Read more
Zeta Aurigae Primary Eclipse Observing Campaign
Now that the epsilon Auriage eclipse has passed, several people have been asking me and Dr. Bob "what's next?" For me I'll spend this academic year finishing up my dissertation, helping finish team publications, and looking for my first postdoc. Dr. Stencel, on the other hand, has an intrest in several other systems one of which is Zeta Auriage.
Back in 2009 Jeffrey Hopkins and CSky teamed up for a mini observing campaign of the secondary eclipse of Zeta Auriage, one of the other stars in the asterisim known as "the kids" in Auriage. Now three years later the primary eclipse of this star system has arrived and we are yet again in need of your assistance to catch the eclipse.Read more
Measuring a Star's brightness
It is very rare that I do a repost of a blog, but this time I had to make an exception. Each day our friends over at Astrobites summarize a paper on ArXiv (or produce some other, similarly interesting blog post) written at an undergraduate readership level. Yesterday's post discussed how brightness from stars (i.e. photometry) is actually measured:
http://astrobites.com/2011/12/15/how-do-astronomers-measure-the-brightness-of-something/
It goes into some discussion of spectral types and filters so it's well worth a read if you have some time to spare.
More stars. Less light. Participate in GLOBE at Night!
Another visual, night sky citizen science project needs your help...
