Welcome friends, dear dear friends, to the LAST EVER International Year of Astronomy 2009 LiveBlog. Yes, that is a promise.

IYA2009 is almost over, although we can’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet because the Closing Ceremony stands between us and a well-deserved holiday. BUT are we getting ahead of ourselves? Odds are you ended up on this site by accident and don’t even know what IYA2009 is. CLUE: it stands for International Year of Astronomy 2009. Let’s explain using the gift of embedded videos from YouTube. Here’s the official IYA2009 trailer:

And here’s a superb fan-made trailer. Sing along!

If you prefer words to videos then read: IYA2009 has been a year-long celebration of astronomy, marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first astronomical observations using a telescope. There have been lots of projects and events, some of which have been covered in previous LiveBlogs. Specifically:

The Opening Ceremony LiveBlog, where it was established that people much prefer pictures to words;

The 100 Hours of Astronomy LiveBlog, where it was discovered that sleep deprivation actually improves the quality of blog posts;

And the Galilean Nights LiveBlog, where it was revealed that blanket cloud cover does nothing to dampen astronomers’ spirits.

This Closing Ceremony LiveBlog will neatly bookend the Year and complete the set, in a gesture that will appeal to the pedant in all of us. (Especially YOU). The ceremony itself is taking place in the Italian city of Padua this weekend, 9 and 10 January 2010. I’ve been struck with a man-cold so will be heavily medicated throughout, which can only lead to an “interesting” series of reports.

Let’s have a look at the list of participants and see which cool cats are going who have had cameo appearances in previous LiveBlogs. Oh, the Cosmic Diary’s Salim will be there. And Mariana of course, yay! The IAU’s Catherine Cesarsky, and Lars… The face-painting Dr. Claudia… Your humble narrator rocks in at number 206. Why have they put my organisation in “quotation marks”? Is that a veiled insult? We’ve also got Pedro and Raquel… And Britt! Yesssss!

At current count there are 283 registered participants. If you’re a super-keen IYA2009 fan, feel free to skim the list and see if there’s anyone there you’d like me to hunt down and ask questions, or something. You know, like what real journalists do. Just leave the request as a comment at the end of the post or e-mail me at lpullen@eso.org if you’re shy. NOTE: most likely “interviews” will take place in the buffet queue only if by a remarkable coincidence I’m in line next to the VIP in question.

Just time for some last-minute preparations. Google Translate has provided me with three mission-critical Italian phrases which must be memorised:

ONE: Sì, grazie.
TWO: No, grazie.
THREE: Dopo un attento esame, ho deciso di optare per una grossa fetta di torta al cioccolato. Vorrei che questo deve essere consegnato immediatamente, come la mia fame richiede la massima urgenza. Eventuali ritardi saranno gravi ripercussioni punta. Questo avviso non si sarebbe ripetuta.

Sorted. See you in Italy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 1:28 pm and is filed under Closing Ceremony, Not another LiveBlog introduction. 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.