Corvo (pronounced [ˈkoɾvu]) is a municipality located in the Corvo Island, the smallest of the 9 islands of the Portuguese autonomous region of Azores. At least, so says Wikipedia. It may only have 425 inhabitants, but that didn’t stop the 100 Hours of Astronomy project reaching them. And how exactly did it reach them?

Plane? No.

Train? No.

Automobile? No.

Speedboat? Yes.

That’s right, astronomers made their way to the island using a speedboat, and the inhabitants came out to hear their lecture. This is right up there with the camels story.

And now, a school in Erding near Munich held a public event which I couldn’t make it to. But don’t worry, because Cristophe Claude sent me the info, and a photo to boot. Thanks!

So, the headline event was to show a science webcast, but technical hitches stopped that. Fortunately, the astronomers had a back-up plan and played a DVD, followed by a discussion on Galileo’s observations and the subsequent revolution.

The presenters should be grateful they didn’t have to get a speedboat to the school. Unless they did.

Cristophe says around 50 people attended, which was more than expected. I hope they had enough tea and biscuits to go around.

What’s been happening in Belgium? Something interesting, for sure. Over to Google Translate, now:

“In the framework of the International Year of Astronomy, Minister for Science Policy Sabine Laruelle presents a galiléoscope Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, before joining the Council of Ministers. This cheap telescope will be available in Belgium at the end of April at a price of 10 euros. The furnishing of this coincides with galiléoscope “100 Hours of Astronomy” (from 2 to 5 April 2009).”

Incidentally, that’s the exact same telescope that Jean-Luc presented to me at Odeonsplatz. Wow!

And finally, an impressive StarParty in Erbil City in the northern Iraqi region Kurdistan. A report written with infectious enthusiasm by Azhy Hasan describes how talks and observations sessions were a tremendous success.

Hi guys!

Always remember to thank the organisers.

Saturn was the star of the show. Even though it’s a planet. And not a star. Obviously.

Astronomy has the power to bring people together, so with that in mind let’s finish with a quote about the event from Azhy Hasan:

“All over the guests and participants were very very happy with that event. The oldest man there, Mam Raheem, looked for the first time in his long years of life and he was really happy and he expressed that with plenty of his kind appreciation words! After all that they asked us about more and more of these events, probably this will be a very nice chance to escape, even for some moments, from the hard life days of our region.“

Over to central Munich now, to see the 100HA event there. It´s been organisd by the Universe Cluster, Baader Planetarium, and Redshift-live.com, so should be ace.

There it all is! The weather´s not too good for solar observation. Oh well, let´s have a closer look.

Yep. Definitely the right place.

Dudes, lens caps. Come on now.

It´s some of the webcast team! Against all odds, they´re not dead.

Hello Barbara, from Universe Cluster.

It´s Jean-Luc, from the EPO \ EurAstro experience. Yay!

And other IYA2009 people. You´re all famous now! More or less. (Less).

The Baader Planetarium was in town. At night it´s being used as an observatory, but by day for planetarium-style shows.

The Earth and A GIANT FINGER!

Jan from Baader Planetarium helpfully set up a stool so I could use it to precariously balance and take photos into the planetarium. Does my insurance cover stool-related planetarium photography misadventures?

The end result was worth the risk. I think.

Here´s the telescope inside the planetarium. Around 3000 people per day have been visiting the Odeonsplatz set-up, learning all about astronomy, and telescopes in particular. It is the 100 Hours of Astronomy project´s aim to get one million people to look through telescopes, bringing the awe-inspiring sights first witnessed by Galileo 400 years ago to people from all walks of life.

FAIL.

But there were lots of people around, including amateur and professional astronomers helping out. And nuns.

Health and safety gone mad.

Pedro, IYA2009 Global Coordinator. What a poser.

It´s Lu again! Hello dude. Stop smoking. You´re supposed to be wise!

And Colleen, presenter extrodinaire! She´s on a bicycle. Is there no end to her talents?

That´s all for now. You don´t know how long it takes to make these blog entries!

It was a fantastic event, and the organisers, especially Douglas, Catherine, Karin, Simon, the tech team and everyone else, deserve big thanks for putting it all together.

Douglas said that one of the highlights for him was fitting the Shanghai Telescope into the schedule, late in the day. The astronomers had been standing in the rain for hours, hoping for a slot. Simon thought that they looked like the Men in Black. He´s an observant fellow.

At the end of the webcast we all went into the studio and congratulated Douglas and the team with champagne. Douglas looks completely out of it, not surprisingly.

Well done eveyone. Could you look a bit more excited for this photo? Please? No?

My highlights had to be the LiveBlog plugs from Nadine and Colleen. You are both heroes. All of the presenters are, as they had a really difficult job.

And the final webcast photo. You can see on the table the three key items needed by the presenters: earpiece (check), booze (check), clothes peg (check).

In the end I was awake for FORTY (40) hours, without coffee or drugs, legal or otherwise. It was a similar story for many of the webcast team, expecially the technical people who worked so hard to set everything up.

The various segments can be viewed again here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/100-hours-of-astronomy

There are still 135 people in the uStream chat channel. Don´t they know it´s over?

Coming next on the LiveBlog: I´ll be visiting Odeonsplatz in Munich, where astronomers have set up special telescopes so that people can safely see the Sun.

There´s still time to get involved in 100 Hours of Astronomy events near you, so go to the official site, www.100hoursofastronomy.org, and see what´s going on.

We’re almost at the finish line! So many of us have made it without any sleep, I think we’ll collapse as soon as Palomar Observatory / Hale Telescope finish at 11am GM (German Time).

I may fall over soon, so this is possibly the last post in a while although I’ll continue updating the Twitter feed. This webcast has been an incredible experience, and it’s very impressive that the ESO folks have managed to arrange it. Much respect must go to Douglas, and also the army of people that have helped.

Sleeeeep soon?

Wooooo!

Gooooooooo Vatican Observatory!

Douglas is a man with moves! Either that or he’s so stressed and delirious with fatigue, he has simply lost his mind 

This means that Catherine can finally escape the autocue hotseat, which she has occupied since THE BEGINNING OF TIME.

She grabbed my camera and exacted revenge for all the shots I’ve been taking.

It’s your faithful blogger, and faithful IYA2009 Global Coordinator. Hello!

We have a schedule of who should be doing which duties for the entire 24 hours. Shifts usually last four hours :(  Catherine is grinning evilly at those still working. Like ME.

Cath and Oliver describe themselves as Colleen’s “water team”, as their main duties are bringing her drinks.

Raquel has arrived, hurray! She’s so HARDCORE she doesn’t even need a seat. She’s also used to working for 24 hours with no breaks, so is well suited to this webcast.

‘Nuff said.

It’s in aid of the 4am Project, which invites people to take and share photos at 4am.

I took two, and Douglas got to choose the winner. Which is THIS:

I bet you want to see the runner-up, as well:

Douglas chose wisely.

And look! It’s on the 4am Project’s front page:

What do you mean, you can’t see it?

Hooo-rah!

And it’s on Flickr too: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lee_pullen/3410122855/

It’s nearly 18 hours into the webcast. There can’t be that many telescopes left, surely. How many telescopes are there in the world, anyway? Here’s an idea. Instead of building lots of small telescopes, build one reeeeeeeeeally big one to get amazing views of everything. Those astronomers have missed a trick, eh.

** watch the live webcast here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/100-hours-of-astronomy **

So, 15 telescopes, 200 visitors, a bit of cloud, but plenty of fun. Onward to the photos!

Don’t let that kid hog the telescope. Seriously.

WHOA! Risky laptop holding technique!

Looks a bit cloudy :(  Points for effort though.

The children are taking over again!

Again, big thanks to Daniel Fischer for this info. You can see all the photos, complete with more useful captions, here.

Don’t worry if you did miss any sections. We have local copies of everything, and will upload when possible.

Now, some exciting news! I just met Colleen, who will be presenting at 1am GM (German Time). That’s in about 20 minutes. I challenged her to match or better Nadine’s Cosmic Diary LiveBlog plug. Will she rise to this task? Watch the webcast and find out!

** Watch it live here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/100-hours-of-astronomy **