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Report Outreach Activities for 1st CS Workshop Here



This is the thread for travel grant awardees of the first Citizen Sky workshop to post their outreach activities. Please include the following information:

  • Brief summary of your activity (one paragraph is fine)
  • Date and location of event
  • How many people you expect it to reach (This can be audience attendance, newsletter subscribers, etc.)
  • Advice for other people planning something similar

Thanks so much in advance. This is a very important part of the project so having documentation is very important in eyes of our funder (NSF).

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Article in Houston Astronomical Society Newsletter

There is an article in the GuideStar newsletter on Epsilon Aurigae

The article can be found here: http://spacibm.rice.edu/~has/4GuideStarPeriodical/Guidestars/2009_June.pdf I am the editor of the club newsletter and I write a monthly article on an easy to observe, but interesting, object in the sky. For the June newsletter I wrote the article on Epsilon Aurigae. The newsletter is available on line, and the organization has about 300 members.

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Talk in September to Houston Astronomical Society

I will be giving a talk to the Houston Astronomical Society at our September meeting on the Citizen Sky project and on Epsilon Aurigae. I'll report back with the results from that meeting. Future opportunities include:

  • Johnson Space Center Astronomy Club
  • Fort Bend Astronomy Club
  • North Houston Astronomy Club
  • Astronomy Day 2009 (at Houston Museum of Natural Science George Observatory)

Enjoy.

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Update to Low Country Stargazers website

There is an update on the LCS website referencing the Citizen Sky Project

Thepage can be found here:

http://lowcountrystargazers.org/citizen_sky.aspx

I assist the editor with updates to the website. I also will be updating progress of outreach events to the Citizen Sky tab on the LCS website. The website is visitedover 300 times per month on average.

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At the Los Angeles Astronomical Society's general meeting on 8-10-09 held at the Griifith Observatory's Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater some very informal EPO was done. Basically informing Laas members and astro buddies :-) of the project and my involvement. In the upcoming months for public star parties which we hold at the Griffith Observatory Id like to set up a eps_Aur Citizen Sky information display station of course not to offset any patrons interest in joining the Laas :-) The first week of September 2009, Ill be doing a talk for the students in the Monrovia High School Astronomy program. Have a good week to all !! and good luck !!! ~~~PJ aka Spaceblanket

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I've posted a message on the LinkedIn 'Amateur Astronomers' group inviting any of the over 800 group members to visit the Citizen Sky web site and take part in the program. Clear skies!

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Hi Bill, Thanks for writing the article on epsilonAurigae. Good job. One point, I do not know where you got the figure of 3000 times the size of our Sun. Current estimates are the F star is 15 solar masses with a diameter of 150 times the Sun's diameter. THe eclipsing body is estimated at 14 solar masses with a diameter of 1500 times the Sun's diameter.

Check the EpsilonAurigae Campaign Web site for up-to-date information. Jeff

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Presentations at the Johnson Space Center Astronomical Society and at the Astronomy Day event are scheduled..

These two presentations are now scheduled:

  • Houston Museum of Natural Science Astronomy Day at the George Observatory. - October 24, 2009
Each year the Houston, Tx area clubs join forces to put on an astronomy day event at the HMNS George Observatory. The group got the award from Sky and Telescope magazine for the best Astronomy Day event in 2007, when approximately 5000 people showed up to look through telescopes and to attend lectures. This year, I'll be giving an outdoor presentation on the Citizen Sky project and Epsilon Aurigae.

Johnson Space Center Astronomical Society -- January, 2010

One of four major astronomical societies in the Houston area has invited me to present to the group on the Citizen Sky project.


I have a couple of outreach events to report: 1.) Tacoma Astronomical Society Annual Astronomy Fair, Saturday Aug 29, 2009: Had a display for the Citizen Sky project and created some nice, small, postcards to pass out with Citizen Sky info on the front and club info on the back. I also created an interactive display so folks could play with an eclipsing binary. It was a rainy day but we still had a few folks (~70) come by and explore epsilon Aurigae. The evening cleared up so we had another ~80 folks drop by and pass the word on there as well. 2.) Star party on Mt. Rainier at the Paradise Lodge. After helping Guustaaf work on his documentary I stayed and set up a telescope at the lodge for an impromptu star party. Talked to ~120 folks about the CitizenSky project while we looked at Jupiter, the Moon, NGC 457 and other bright clusters and such. (there was a lot of Moon last night) The general response seems to be 1.) why do we need to know and 2.) how can just little ol' me make a difference. My advice is tell them why you are interested and emphasize all the people who will gain from the data. Let them see you passion and if you are outside just play with them using other stars...is that one brighter or dimmer than that one...etc. Next event: General Meeting of the Tacoma Astronomical Society - University of Puget Sound, Wyhatt Hall 7:30 - 9:30pm Topic: 400 years of the Telescope and Epsilon Aurigae (modified powerpoint from the Citizen Sky site). (expected participants ~35) Cheers, Alice Alice Few Tacoma Astronomical Society justafew


>1.) why do we need to know I'm surprised someone at a star party asked that. It's a tough one to answer! What is your personal response to that question?


Hello! I am Maravelias Grigoris from Greece and I am trying to spread this event here in Greece as an opportunity to many people to come closer to the science of Astronomy. I have set up a small page in Greek about the event ( http://www.hellas-astro.gr/article.php?id=765&topic=variables&subtopic=&... ) and I will make a talk about the system and how to observe it visually at the 6th Panhellenic Conference on Amateur Astronomy, which will be held at Alexandroupolis, Greece, on 25-27th of September (http://www.astrosynedrio.gr/). Probably, I will be also able to show how to observe the star in the field during the night. I hope that this will make more people interested in the campaign of epsilon Auriga and variable observations. Best wishes, Grigoris edit: I am sorry...i just discovered that probably I should NOT have put this on this thread. I think that a moderator should put this reply to a thread that fits better. Iam sorry again.

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I completed the Eps Aur talk to the Houston Astronomical Society (novice) group on Friday, September 4, 2009. There were over 40 people attending, and I gave out more than 30 copies (all that I had) of the 10 Star Tutorial. The talk was well received and was a lot of fun for me!One question I got: "What are 'comp stars'?" Good question!!! I did a quick review of the process of doing visual estimates of variable stars using nearby (in the sky) comparison stars of known magnitude. I also showed the data entry page from the CitizenSky web site.I'll be working on a 20 minute, general public, presentation for our October Astronomy Day event at the Houston Museum of Natural Science George Observatory at Brazos Bend State Park. This will begin with topics such as, what are constellations?, how are stars named? (why is this star called 'epsilon' anyway?), star magnitudes and how this works, finding the star, variable stars, etc. When I get the presentation developed, I'll share it with everyone here. (Note that this presentation will be outside, during the day, so no projector, computer, or screen will be used.)Clear skies to all


My first response was a light hearted "Because we don't know!" Then I asked them what we might learn by looking and then I shared my thoughts; That no matter what happens, we find out what is going on in that system or not, we have added to the general pool of knowledge that might help someone figure out this mystery or some other mystery and we get better at what we do. I tried to keep it general in the 2 minutes they were around to look at Jupiter...but they took one of the project cards!!!Alice


Even though it rained all of astronomy day we still had a lot of folks come by the display in the library and when it cleared up for the star party all was right with the world. I estimate that I talked to, and handed out to the interested, about 100 Citizen Sky postcards.I have attached the postcard front (Citizen Sky) and the back (club info) if anyone else would like to use them. Feel free to put all your own information on the back. I only supply it so you have a matched front back ready to send to the printer. I couldn't upload the original .pub file so email me if you want a copy (few_2001@yahoo.com)

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We are going to have a combined LCROSS impact and epsilon Aurigae viewing party on October 9th from 3:30am to 5:30am. Mainly for the LCROSS impact we are going to take the opportunity to show folks where e.a. is and hand out some 10 Star Tutorials. The moon will overshadow everything BUT it will be something to talk about and try out as we wait for impact!If you are in the Pacific NW and want to join us (can't guarantee anything weather wise) we will be at the W.M. Keck (little Keck) observatory on the Pacific Lutheran University campus. You can contact me offline at few_2001@yahoo.comAlice


Suzanne did a very nice job talking about the Citizen Sky project at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific conference last week (San Francisco). Citizen Sky had prime time in at least two of the breakout sessions and those of us who were there did our share as well.Thanks Suzanne!Alice


I talked about Citizen Sky briefly in the July podcast and in more detail in the September podcast. Details are here: http://www.astronomy.libsyn.com/About 25,000 hits so far never sure it they are there on purpose or not! LOL sometimes it is just for the lunar phases and the star charts and not the other information.Cheers!Alice

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Greetings, So nice to see all the EPO updates... Way to go everyone !!! Today I spoke to the Monrovia High School Astro 101 students about Citizen Sky. They were a wonderful group of students and carried lots of interest about eps_Aur !!! This week, finally I received my Galileoscopes in the mail !!! The teacher and I were going to have a G-Scope raffle at the end of the talk but ran out of time :( Shell do it next week. We will start with the 10 star at the Monrovia High School Observatory in the early evenings as well.Thanks Mike Simonsen for the use of your Citizen Sky eps_Aur ppt !! and thanks to all for sharing your experiences and ideas !!! A great weekend to all !!!~~~ PJ aka Sb

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Dr. Garmany (NOAO) and I teach an online astronomy course for Arizona teachers. On November 6th, we will take 8 teachers to Kitt peak to use the 0.9m telescope. I will show the teachers how to doo naked eye observations using the 10 star tutorial and then post their observations on the citizensky website. Advice and comments are welcome.

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I just see your message to-day . Why do we need to know ? That's just because we are human people and our safety is to analyse as rightly as possible the events we are witnessing , or at least , we are aware of disregarding their media support . The problem of star variability and the understanding of their causes is one of the keys to understand our own star and through that to have a look at the earth's future and our own . Without speaking of all the other ways we may disappear . This question remind me of the one a young school boy asking us when we were explaining them the solar system« Why do we call a star ...a star ? » We had no real explanation at that time , and I was obliged to go up till the Sanskrit language to find the answer . This language , surely get it from other older language !! . The problem of stars is not new and belong to the story of humanity .Why do we need to know ? Is because the roots of human being is based on knowledge .I ask you to be kind enough not to blame too much my poor english . Regards J.Lawless

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I completed a presentation to the Fort Bend Astronomy Club meeting on 9/18/2009. This club is just southwest of Houston. There were 30 people attending the meeting. I used the Citizen Sky presentation, with some minor modifications and a bit of localization (when does Eps Aur rise tonight?).Fewer 10-Star Tutorials were taken at this presentation, but I also had some calling cards printed with the URL for the CitizenSky web site and contact information for me. The purpose of these cards was to provide a quick and easy handout to those attendees who didn't want to take a copy of the 10-Star Tutorial with them. By going to the web site, they have access to all the materials and can go from there.One question after the presentation, "Is the orbiting object dark matter?" Answer: Well, it's dark and it's matter, but it's not what we call 'dark matter'. Astronomers are still working on figuring out what 'dark matter' is.Next stop.... Astronomy Day, October 24.Clear skies to all.!

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Hi, I have been practicing my talk about Episilon Aurigae on friends and neighbors. Yesterday (9/30/09) I met with 4 friends from a former children's book writer group. We were catching up on news, since we hadn't seen each other in months. I spent my talking time telling them about Epsilon Aurigae, the Citizen Sky Project, and how they could become involved. They told me that I totally lit up while talking about this project and that it was a topic I should explore writing about for kids. I'm glad they could see my excitement because I'll be talking to Southern Maine Astronomers at their monthly club meeting tonight about the project. I am also exploring how to get astronomers all over the world, who are part of Astronomers Without Borders, active in this project. In order to fit the AWB mission, there is hope that there will be multinational teams working on this project. More about this later.Joan Chamberlin


Nice job Joan! If you come up with any attention getting ideas come on over and post them to Team Hook, in the teams section. We are trying to gather attention grabbing ideas for everyone who participates in short-term outreach, like talks and children's books! We would love to tap your creativity and energy.Good luck with your presentation! I have one next week and will be working on the presentation over the weekend. If you have any helpful reflections or presentation tips please pass them along!Cheers,Alice

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Hello All,As promised during the Citizen Sky workshop, we now have a way for you to post your public talks! There is a menu item in the "Communicate" tab called events. There you can either search for an event or create and event. Please be sure to list any of your public talks on Citizen Sky or epsilon Aurigae. Also, feel free to list any astronomy related events that you would like to publicize.For record keeping, please be sure to continue reporting workshop-related outreach in this thread.Thanks!

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Tonight I did a talk about Epsilon Aurigae and The Citizen Sky Project for 11 amateur astronomers. I used the powerpoint found on the Citizen Sky website. People were quite interested and had some guesses about the objects in the center of the disk. Unfortunately I didn't have any 10 star tutorials to hand out, but I explained how they could register on the site and download the materials. I also told them that there would be information from the workshop on there soon.

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I tried to observe variable stars in the 10 star tutorial from my home in Tucson. We found that it was only really possible to make accurate readings of the brighter variable stars (mag 2.5) due to the light pollution. I then took 3 students to Mount Bigelow (over 7000 feet). The students were able to make accurate observations of most the 10 stars in the tutorial. However, we still had to wait until epsilon aurigae was higher in the sky before accurate readings were possible.

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About 20 people attended an 'outdoor' presentation on Epsilon Aurigae at the 2009 Astronomy Day event held at the George Observatory (owned by the Houston Museum of Natural Science).See www.astronomyday.org for more information. This was a short presentation, with no projector and intended for the general public. I've attached a MS-Word version of that presentation to this posting. I gave out several copies of the 10-Star Tutorial as well as a one-page copy of Auriga from the Tutorial. We had beautiful clear skies last night, but the event ended before Auriga got high enough in the sky to make an observation. Clear skies to all. ..Bill

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November 6th I did a presentation for 20 amateur astronomers and the public at the monthly meeting for Astronomical Society of Northern New England in Kennebunk, Maine. The talk and discussion lasted a little over an hour. I used the Power Point that was originally on the citizen sky website for part of the presentation. The mystery of this object really caught their interest, and , of course,they all had some possible theories. I talked about the website and how they could get more information there, and passed out 8 Ten Star Tutorials. Some people agreed to get it off the website to save aavso some printing/postage costs. I think we may get a few takers from this session. They stayed after the meeting talking about it and we went outside and checked it out in the moonlight after the meeting. The talk went well. Unfortunately we can't get the internet at our meeting site. I would have liked to have the 10 star tutorial as a powerpoint.

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On Dec. 3rd I did a workshop at Ladd Observatory for teachers from the local public schools on the topic of variable stars. We showed them how to read the star charts in the tutorial and find Algol in the sky. (The sky was clear during the workshop, but the clouds rolled in before the eclipse) We also used a CCD camera to take images of RZ Cas and SU Cas. During the program I used VStar to show light curves while explaining star variability. There is a more detailed report about that in the VStar team forum. This was a follow-up to a presentation that I gave in July. Also presenting were Ian Dell'Antonio, who talked about his research, and graduate student fellow John Macaluso. The event was sponsored by the NSF GK12 program and the Dept. of Physics at Brown. There were about 20 or so people in the group and we plan to do this about once per month through the spring. The program was very well received and the teachers were excited about meeting again in January.

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On the evening of December 10th I presented the Citizen Sky project to a group of fifteen citizen astronomers. The group meets once a month at the John McCarthy Observatory in New Milford, Connecticut. I reviewed the mystery at hand via a PowerPoint presentation, as well as the resources available through the Citizen Sky site. I highlighted the opportunity to participate in an international observing campaign focused on an enigma of historic interest.

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On Dec. 8th I gave a talk on variable star observing and citizen science during the Ladd Observatory public open night. There were about a dozen people in the audience. I discussed the role of amateurs in collecting data and showed light curves of eclipsing binary systems from the AAVSO database using VStar.

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I wrote an article about Epsilon Aurigae and Citizen Sky for Skylights, the online newletter for Astronomical Society of Northern New England. The article is about 380 words and can be accessed at http://www.asnne.org . Once at the website, click on Skylights. The article is in the January 2010 issue on page 5. The title of the piece is People of the World, We Need Your Eyes. Readership is approximately 100 people.

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A brief update on the epsilon Aurigae spectroscopy group of San Mateo County, Sally Seebode, Darryl Stanford, Dean Drumheller We have been working with high school and community college students involving them with spectral imaging and analysis since September 2009. Currently we are working with 10 – 20 students, and still hope to attract more. We presented a poster at the Jan 2010 AAS meeting in Washington DC sharing our analysis of epsilon Aurigae pre-eclipse and ingress spectral energy lines. We joined NITARP, NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Project, and hope to continue work with Don Hoard and Steve Howell obtaining infrared data from Spitzer Space Telescope.Conversations informing and promoting our program have occurred between both San Mateo High School and College of San Mateo administrations.Sally Seebode will be making a public presentation for the AAUW group of San Bruno on April 26, 2010 regarding spectroscopy and how we are using it to unravel the mystery of epsilon Aurigae.Sally Seebode will be making a public presentation for the Millbrae Rotary on April 27, 2010 regarding spectroscopy and how we are using it to unravel the mystery of epsilon Aurigae.The San Mateo County Times had an article on our work with epsilon Aurigae in the February 8, 2010 newspaper.Our advice would be to find something that interests you and keep pursuing it. People will join you. Your enthusiasm is contagious. Be aware of opportunities that present themselves.


With a gentle reminder from Rebecca I have documented as many of the outreach activities I can recall or find records of. I expect to add to this list in the future, including a Slacker Astronomy episode coming up in which I interviewed Rebecca Turner about Citizen Sky and epsilon Aurigae. May 30, 2009- I gave a one-hour talk at the Kalamazoo Astronomy Day Event in Kalamazoo, MI on Epsilon Aurigae. 100+ people attended the talk. June 1, 2009- I gave a one-hour talk at the Cranbrook Science Center in Bloomfield Hills, MI on Epsilon Aurigae. 100+ people attended the talk. The Q&A session after ran another ½ hour. Great crowd. July 7, 2009- 10-minute podcast with Rebecca Turner aired on 365 Days of Astronomy. The podcast was written, recorded and produced by me. Thousands listened to the original airing, and it has been downloaded over 5,000 times since then. July 16, 2009- I gave a one-hour talk at Macomb County Comm. College in Warren, MI for the Warren Astronomical Society on Epsilon Aurigae. The talk was attended by 45 people and was well received. August 7, 2009- I gave a one-hour talk at the Astronomical League Convention in New York City on Epsilon Aurigae. The talk was attended by 50-75 people and was enthusiastically received. August 11, 2009- I wrote a piece for Simostronomy featuring the Citizen Sky Lite Bright video. Simostronomy is read by over 4500 people each month. August 25, 2009- I wrote a piece for Simostronomy featuring Citizen Sky and Epsilon Aurigae. Simostronomy is read by over 4500 people each month. September 3, 2009- I wrote a blog piece for Simostronomy that featured an image of the star and an interview with the astrophotographer who took it. Simostronomy is read by over 4500 people each month. January 9, 2010- I wrote a blog about Citizen Sky and epsilon Aurigae for Simostronomy. Simostronomy is read by over 4500 people each month. January 29, 2010- I was interviewed on Astronomy.FM Radio for the Event Horizon Show. We talked about AAVSO, variable stars and Epsilon Aurigae. That episode has been re-aired dozens of times and heard by thousands of people.

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Hi, I am maintaining a log of all epsilon Aurigae spectra taken by amateurs for the International campaign on behalf of Bob Stencel and Jeff Hopkins. http://www.threehillsobservatory.co.uk/epsaur_spectra.htm I am not exactly surewhere in thePro-Am spectrumyour work liesbut you are welcome to submit your spectra for inclusion in the log. If you prefer to retain the data, you can just let me know what spectrayou have(date, time and wavelenth range covered as aminimum) and I can addthem to the listwith a contact link so researchers know what spectra are available and can contact you. Best Regards Robin Leadbeater

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We are hosting a Messier Marathon here tomorrow evening and will include in our observation a small presentation about Epsilon Aurigae! Huntsville, Texas from 7:00 to sunrise March 12-13th. Clear Skies! Mike Prokosch

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For the past 3 months I have been working on getting participants for the Epsilon Aurigae observations with Astronomers Without Borders. I sent out a description of what the project is and how they could be involved. I received back confirmation from a group from Brazil, Nepal, Romania, and Jamaica, who I believed registered at Citizen Sky. I am not sure how much observing they have done or logged in. Since they joined when the eclipse was already on, there probably wasn't much to report. One of the members of my astronomy club registered and is observing and logging in his observations. In March, a friend that I met on Facebook from Trieste, Italy joined and is on the 20/20 team, I believe. March 17th I explained the Citizen Sky program to a high school student from Cape Elizabeth, Maine, who is working on a senior project in astronomy with me. He has already registered and has begun observing stars from the 10 star tutorial. In other outreach for Citizen Sky, I am gathering a group of amateur astronomers/astronomers from the Southern Hemisphere to begin a list of 10 variable stars viewable from the Southern Hemisphere for a 10 star tutorial for Southern Hemisphere observers. So far I have 2 people from Australia, 2 from Brazil, 1 from Bolivia, 1 from Tanzania, 1 from Nicaragua. These participants are all members of Astronomers Without Borders, but it is not necessary to be a member of this to join the group. I expect several more participants will also be joining. We will be forming a team on Citizen Sky very soon.

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Last night, March 20, 2010, Kye Ewing and myself hosted a star party (our second one- the first in February) called "Star Gazing with Creatures of the Night". It was a fund raiser for Arnold's Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Okeechobee, Florida. We had at least 75 people attend, possibly closer to 100. What a wonderful night. The highlight was the Moon/Pleiades conjunction/occultation that we watched for 2 hours. The folks were amazed. We taught them what occultations and conjunctions were. We saw the International Space Station pass over right on time at 8:16PM EDT. That was a thrill. Kye did a night sky show with the green laser pointer. I showed the folks Epsilon Aurigae and the comparison star and told them how we make the estimates. I had a number of questions from the audience about Eps Aur and eclipsing binaries. Mars and Saturn were very popular. I am always amazed, especially in the rural country towns like Okeechobee, how much the people appreciate someone coming and teaching them about the night sky. Chris Stephan Robert Clyde Observatory Sebring, Florida USA

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On 13th February 2010, we made a webcastof the transit of an extra solar planet named "XO-3b".

The event has observed using a highly sophisticated robotic telescope and a sensitive cooled CCD camera.

The event broadcasted on the web from the Bareket observatory's remote EDU Internet telescope, located in Israel. See link for further information : http://bareket-astro.com/live/transit_xo-3b/info_en.htm The XO-3b transit followed by the transit of GJ436b, attached is it's light curve image. Ido.

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Normal0falsefalsefalseEN-USX-NONEX-NONEMicrosoftInternetExplorer4/* Style Definitions */table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;mso-para-margin-top:0in;mso-para-margin-right:0in;mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;mso-para-margin-left:0in;line-height:115%;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} With the gentle prodding from Rebecca, I thought I should finally document my outreach activities so far: September 11, 2009 – I presented a talk about Epsilon Aurigae to the Sunset Astronomical Society astronomy club meeting in Bay City, Michigan. There were about 30 in attendance. I used a modified version of the Epsilon Aurigae PowerPoint (thanks Mike!) and handed out the 10-star tutorial to all those who were interested. There was one high school student who was VERY interested and stayed a while after asking a lot of questions. She wants to collect data, but doesn’t know if here school schedule will allow her the time! September 18, 2009 – I presented essentially the same talk as above to the Astronomical Unit astronomy club meeting, also in Bay City, Michigan. This area actually has two clubs! There were about 20 in attendance and again I handed out the 10-star tutorial to anyone interested. The two astronomy clubs are jointly planning a somewhat late Messier Marathon in April. The dates are April 9 & 10 or 16 & 17. They’re hoping one of those nights will be clear! I will be attending and will try to include actual observations of Epsilon Aurigae during the marathon. I’ll report on that later. The Delta College Planetarium in Bay City, Michigan will have special programs and activities for Astronomy Day on April 24. I’m planning to include a talk or at least information to visitors about Epsilon Aurigae. There will be public observing from the Planetarium’s Observation Deck that night if clear and I’ll try to include information and observing of Epsilon Aurigae too. Cheers, Garry Beckstrom
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Susan Kelly and Chris Martin presented a session on opportunities for secondary student astronomy research at the National Science Teachers Association conference. The Citizen Sky project and associated resources were presented. Twenty-five teachers participated in the session.
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Sorry to be so late-just found the link! I have already done presentations emphasizing Epsilon aurigae but also plugging the 10 Star Tutorial at the RASC Toronto Chapter, the Durham County Astronomy Club, the North York Astronomers, and the Toronto Public Library(Beaches Branch). I found schools to be resistant to presentations unless Islipped it in as a supply teacher for classes that didn't have much to do. I will be presenting an update on the Epsilon aurigae eclipse at the Toronto RASC in May, and I am consulting with Mike Simonsen for ideas about the most significant discoveries so far, as Ihave to squeeze things into a 25 minute framework. I was fortunate a few weeks ago to catch the ISS going through Epsilon's little triangle, though in trying to block the parking lot lights Ionly succeeded in illuminating myself on to the image.

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On 10th April 2010, we will webcast (weather permitting) the transit of an extra solar planet named "HAT-P-3b" (UMa). The event will be observed using a highly sophisticated robotic telescope and a sensitive cooled CCD camera. The event will be broadcast on the web from the Bareket observatory's remote EDU Internet telescope, located in Israel. www.bareket-astro.com The event will take about 2 hours in duration, scheduled to take place at 10th April 2010 21:30UTC (24:30 local Israel summer time) – a dedicated clock available on the webcast page *** The web cast page can be seen at: http://www.bareket-astro.com/live/transit_hat-p-3b/cast.html *** European server: http://live-internet-telescope.com/live/transit_hat-p-3b/cast.html

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We hosted a star party for Astronomy Day last night at the S.H.S.U. Observatory. We hosted about 35-40 guests and Iintroduced them to Epsilon Aurigae and Citizensky. Hopefully some will join us and participate. Also, I did an episode about Epsilon Aurigae a while back on my Seeing Stars podcast. You can search Seeing Stars on Itunes, or hear is streaming here... http://seeingstars.yolasite.com/podcast.php It is episode 5. Clear Skies! Mike Prokosch

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We setup a special area inside of the Francis Scobee Planetarium where I work and talked about Epsilon Aurigae, what we knew from past observations, and what is currently being reported. In all it was a great night with over 500+ attendees at our event. The public loved hearing about it and wondered why it wasn't being covered by the Discovery channel! Bryan Tobias SanAntonio League of Sidewalk Astronomers San Antonio, Texas

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Wednesday April 21 we had 15 students and 3 adults out for viewing the night sky at Riverwoods Field Lab in Cornwell, Florida. This was the 5th group of Environmental Science students from South Plantation Magnet High School from Fort Lauderdalethat were out this winter/spring. Fortunately, we had clear skies each time. I was able to point out constellations and bright stars with the green laser pointer. I showed them Epsilon Aurigae and told them about the star and the Citizen Sky project and web site. I showed them many objects in our 12 inch reflecting telescope. Their favorite was Saturn. Several times we saw 4 moons. Chris Stephan Robert Clyde Observatory Sebring, Florida USA

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5:30-7:30 PM Saturday, September 26th Arizona Science Center Phoenix, AZ I gave a three 20 minute presentations on the Citizen Sky Project to approximately 25 teachers per session. I had handouts and projected the web site. It went very well,.

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Thursday, October 15, 2009 SACNAS (Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science) Convention Sheraton Dallas Hotel Dallas, TX I gave a 30 minute share-a-thon session and featured variable star observing. Approximately 30 undergraduate students and K-12 teachers attended.

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I included information about the Citizen Sky Project in both of my workshops. Approximately 80, K-12 teachers and administrators attended each workshop for a total of 160 participants. October 21-23, 2009 NCTM (National Council of the Teachers of Mathematics) National Conference Sheraton Boston Hotel Boston, MA

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I projected the website and explained the Citizen Sky Project at the close of one of my workshops entitled Astronishing Astronomy. Saturday, December 5, 2009 NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) Southwestern Regional Phoenix Convention Center Phoenix, AZ

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I showed the website and brief tutorial to introduce Citizen Sky as a part of my workshop entitled, Amazing Journeys. Approximately 85 in attendance. Saturday, February 6, 2010 Space Exploration Educators Conference Space Center Houston Houston, TX

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