Not so long ago, I had the honor of writing the first post in the Galilean Nights Blog. Now, I’m twice honored in closing the door I opened three weeks ago.

There is no doubt that every big project first appears like a hard thing to do, but when cooperation hands and no surrendering souls are gathering together then every thing become easy and continuing very easy and smoothly.

Although Amateur Astronomers Association of Kurdistan have very limited material and financial support here in Iraqi Kurdistan Region, but we made our ever biggest event during the (Great) International Year of Astronomy 2009.

I’m sure all of us involved with the Year of Astronomy hope some level of similar programming will continue in 2010 and beyond in our communities, to bring astronomy to as wide an audience as possible. Here are some of my thoughts on how best to make that happen.

400 years ago Galileo Galilee, made his small telescope and pointed it to the sky. He saw the satellites of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, dark spots on the face of the Sun and craters on the Moon. He just reported what he saw and talked about his results. He uncovered evidence that support a heliocentric model of the world.

But OBSERVATION was not safe work at that time. Science was dangerous and talking about new frontiers was sometimes repaid with the scientist’s own blood. And Galileo himself faced an inquisition trial because of what he saw.

400 years after those dark times it seems everything has changed.

The Joint observation of Hefei Universities for Galilean Nights was organized by the Association of Amateur Astronomers of University of Science and Technology of China (AAA of USTC).

The observation began at 7p.m. on Oct. 24th, 2009 in two locations. One is the Astronomy and teaching open Laboratory of USTC, and another is the City Hall Square of Hefei.

Galilean Nights was a global star party held across the world on the evenings of 22-24^th October 2009, to commemorate 400 years since Galileo first looked to the heavens and changed the universe for us, forever. This was the second global star party organised this year, after the 100 Hours of Astronomy outreach programme in April, as a part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. A few members of the College of Engineering (CoEP) Astronomy Club had been volunteers 100HA, working with a team from GMRT. When news came in regarding Galilean Nights, we decided to hold a small event ourselves, on the night of the 22^nd October 2009 (Friday).

I had the great fortune to be a guest speaker aboard the Golden Princess cruise ship for her two week journey from Los Angeles, CA to Hawaii during the Galilean Nights! When we were not in port, I gave a total of seven presentations on Astronomy and Space Exploration topics. I wasn’t sure what kind of attendance I would receive with all the distractions of a luxurious cruise ship, but I was pleasantly surprised when I found I had a strong following of over 100 people looking forward to each talk.

Galilean Nights in LICEO ZORRILLA:

We closed the Galilean Nights amid electoral chaos and weather alert.

But despite the insane weather patterns we forced the elements to take a truce and our school students armed with their XO’s, laptops that the state provides each of the students in Uruguay, without distinction, we had our Night for Galileo.

Auriol, Peter, Alecia and Graham

We had a blast over the Galilean Nights in Gingin, Western Australia. At Gingin Observatory (www.ginginobservatory.com) we hosted a great event called ‘Local Food, Local Stars’ on Saturday, 24 October. After a delicious meal of local lamb, quail, homemade pasta and fresh local produce, we all headed up to the observatory to do some stargazing.

When somebody who’s English is chosen to coordinate an astronomy outreach project such as Galilean Nights is it perhaps inevitable that rain and cloud will “stop play” for at least part of the event? I say, “don’t be absurd”, and I’m not just saying that because I don’t want any cancelled events to be all my fault…