100 Hours of Astronomy starting tomorrow

One of the cornerstone projects of the International Year of Astronomy, the 100 Hours of Astronomy (100HA), starts tomorrow. This is a 100-hour, round-the-clock, round-the-globe event that includes live webcasts from research observatories, public observing events and other activities around the world. Two major events of 100HA are the Science Centre Webcast and Around the World in 80 Telescopes.

Science Centres Webcast

Space Observation: Past, Present and Future

Organised by the Association of Science-Technology Centre, Washington, DC, USA
Hosted by The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Date: Thursday, 2 April 2009
Starting Time: 11:00pm Maldivian time
Duration: 90 minutes

This webcast will be hosted by the Franklin Institute on the occasion of the opening of their special exhibition, "Galileo" which features the original Galileo telescope. The webcast will feature science centres from around the world discussing the importance of space observation throughout history.

Topics

• Galileo's importance and what recent research tells us about the instrument he used.
  

• A discussion of naked eye observations of the sky and the knowledge systems of indigenous peoples.
  

• Learn why observatories and telescopes were so important to the economic evolution of our modern society, espeically for Port Cities around the world. A live demonstration will show how precision tools based on special telescopes have enormously improved our reference frames and grids of space and time (Positional Astronomy, Reference Catalogues and Navigation).

• The COSMOS project www.cosmos-project.eu, a unique resource for astronomy education that offers access to numerous educational materials, animations, 3D representations and simulations, teachers resources and astronomical data.
  

• The mechanisms of meteorite impacts.
  

• The power and beauty of a '3D-virtual telescope" allowing us all to visualise and compare data from real telescopes in a 3 dimensional model of the observable Universe.
  

Around the World in 80 Telescopes

Live 24-hour webcast from astronomical observatories

Organised by ESO, the European Southern Observatory, from its HQ in Garching, Germany

Date: 3 April 2009, 02:00pm MVT to 4 April 2009, 02:00pm Maldivian time.

Duration: 24 hours

The Research Observatories webcast will be a unique live webcast over 24 hours, following night and day around the globe to some of the most advanced observatories on and off the planet.

Viewers can find out what's happening at a research observatory on the other side of the planet, and discover what astronomers are doing right now! Who is observing? What are they researching? What do they hope to discover?

The tour will show a snapshot of life at many different observatories where astronomers will present exclusive images and talk about their work. Some will be observing distant galaxies, searching for extrasolar planets around other stars or studying our own Solar System. Some will be studying the Universe in visible light, others in radio waves or other wavelengths. Some may be working at solar observatories or with telescopes out in space. All of them will have a different story to tell.

link to 100 Hours of Astronomy website