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Meet the astronomers. See where they work. Know what they know.


The Project:

The Cosmic Diary is not just about astronomy. It's more about what it is like to be an astronomer.

The Cosmic Diary aims to put a human face on astronomy: professional scientists will blog in text and images about their lives, families, friends, hobbies and interests, as well as their work, their latest research findings and the challenges that face them. The bloggers represent a vibrant cross-section of female and male working astronomers from around the world, coming from five different continents. Outside the observatories, labs and offices they are musicians, mothers, photographers, athletes, amateur astronomers. At work, they are managers, observers, graduate students, grant proposers, instrument builders and data analysts.

Throughout this project, all the bloggers will be asked to explain one particular aspect of their work to the public. In a true exercise of science communication, these scientists will use easy-to-understand language to translate the nuts and bolts of their scientific research into a popular science article. This will be their challenge.

Task Group:

Mariana Barrosa (Portugal, ESO ePOD)
Nuno Marques (Portugal, Web Developer)
Lee Pullen (UK, Freelance Science Communicator)
André Roquette (Portugal, ESO ePOD)

Jack Oughton (UK, Freelance Science Communicator)
Alice Enevoldsen (USA, Pacific Science Center)
Alberto Krone Martins (Brazil, Uni. S. Paulo / Uni. Bordeaux)
Kevin Govender (South Africa, S. A. A. O.)
Avivah Yamani (Indonesia, Rigel Kentaurus)
Henri Boffin (Belgium, ESO ePOD)

Kickoff to an astronomical 2009

Yesterday was a special day in South Africa, astronomically speaking. First off, there was the annular solar eclipse which SA had a nice partial view of (from 23 to 65% depending on where you were). The path of totality started south of SA and tracked across the south Indian ocean to Indonesia, and the intertubes were all atwitter with pictures of its progress. Cosmos4u is full of tweets with links to nice pictures, and while you’re at it, you should be following astronomy2009 too. Also check out the eclipse and solarastronomy2009 tags on flickr, and SA’s solar eclipse blog.

My day started at 7am with a breakfast hosted by Astronomy Africa, in the beautiful scenery of Kloofzicht Lodge. Unfortunately we were plagued by clouds for most of the eclipse, though we did have some nice viewing at times (funnily enough, my most viewed photo on my flickr page yesterday was of clouds). A welding face shield came in particularly handy as it wasn’t as dark as the eclipse viewers we had, and so showed the sun through the clouds better. I experimented with holding the shield and even the eclipse glasses up to my camera and while I got some pics, but the results weren’t that great. Luckily though, there were some other interesting viewing opportunities too.

Secondly, yesterday was the day South Africa officially launched the International Year of Astronomy here! The main event happened down in Cape Town at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO). Our Minister of Science and Technology, Mosibudi Mangena was there to give the official speech, and then there was time for some viewing and tours of the facilities. Photos from the launch are available here.

All in all, it was a very successful day in South Africa for astronomy, and as SA’s IYA point of contact and Cosmic Diary Task Grouper Kevin Govender said, “We’ve got the momentum now to really make this an ASTRONOMICAL 2009!”

UPDATE with more eclipse goodness: If you just can’t get enough of eclipse photos, cosmos4u has made a great collection of all the stuff he found is the first 36 hours. And check out the gallery on SpaceWeather. 

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 10:11 pm and is filed under Astronomy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.