IAU Astronomy Outreach Newsletter

October 2014

In this newsletter:

0. From the Editor
1. Register to Enter the NameExoWorlds contest
2. Translation support for the IAU Directory of World Astronomy website
3. Professional-Amateur Collaborations Opportunities: Jupiter monitoring support for the NASA JUNO mission
4. IYL2015: Translation support for the Globe at Night 2015 resources
5. Project Updates: GalileoMobile goes to Colombia
6. Share your resources to the world
7. Upcoming Meetings
8. Contributions to this newsletter

0) From the Editor

The IAU is organising the NameExoWorlds contest and would like to welcome all of you to participate. Before you can propose names for the exoworlds, you should contact the public astronomical organisations, schools or communities, tell them about the campaign and ask them to register in the IAU Directory of World Astronomy. Don’t miss the chance! At the same time, we would like to seek translation support for these projects. And I would also like to draw your attention to the NASA JUNO mission that amateur can indeed play a major role in supporting the mission. Last but not least, please send us your ideas and news, you need your support in order to keep this newsletter running.

Clear Skies,
Sze-leung Cheung
IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach

1) Register to Enter the NameExoWorlds contest

The IAU invites all public organisations with an interest in astronomy to register on the IAU Directory for World Astronomy website for the NameExoWorlds contest, where they will in early 2015 be able to suggest names for exoplanets and their host stars. For the first time in history the public will then be able to vote for the official name of stars and planets. The IAU Directory for World Astronomy will function as a permanent platform for the global astronomical community.

The deadline for registration for the contest is 31 December 2014. Details of the registration procedure can be found on the website. Eligible organisations include: planetariums, science centres, amateur astronomy clubs, online astronomy platforms, but also non-profit organisations such as high schools or cultural clubs interested in astronomy.

Details: https://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau1406/

2) Translation support for the IAU Directory of World Astronomy website

We need your support to help to translate the registration guide for the IAU Directory of World Astronomy website, for details, please visit http://directory.iau.org/register/guide

3) Professional-Amateur Collaborations Opportunities: Jupiter monitoring support for the NASA JUNO mission

NASA’s JUNO spacecraft will arrive Jupiter in January 2016. JUNO will improve our understanding of the history of the solar system by investigating the origin and evolution of Jupiter. JUNO will map Jupiter from the deepest interior to the atmosphere using microwaves, and magnetic and gravity fields.

The JUNO team would like to seek ameteur support for remote-sensing. To help in predicting the locations of features, providing the contextual observations over the globe and in time. We need great images and movies of the whole disk of Jupiter in RGB filters, plus additional filters as possible (e.g. 890 nm “methane” and other narrow band filters).

If you are interested, please contact Dr Orton Glenn (Glenn.S.Orton@jpl.nasa.gov) for details.

4) IYL2015: Translation support for the Globe at Night 2015 resources

We're gearing up for the Globe at Night 2015 campaign (http://www.globeatnight.org/downloads) , but your help is needed. Last year, the materials was offered in 27 languages. If you're interested in translating materials into your language, please contact Dr Connie Walker (cwalker@noao.edu).

5) Project Updates: GalileoMobile goes to Colombia

The GalileoMobile have organised an expedition that reached thousands of people across Brasil and Bolivia. And they are now announcing their next adventure, "GalileoMobile: between the stars and Bacatá". In this GalileoMobile's first visit to Colombia, from October 13th to 31st they will visit five schools in the area of Bogotá. As always, they will observe the sky and perform science experiments with young people and their teachers, focusing on exchanging ideas and views about the sky.

To learn more about the GalileoMobile project: www.galileo-mobile.org

6) Share your resources to the world

As an astronomy educators or communicators, we know you’ve developed many resources that may be common and useful to everyone, why not share it with the world. Send us an message (outreach@iau.org) about your resources, and we can help to publicize it and share with the whole world.

7) Upcoming Meetings

a) Southeast Asian Young Astronomers Collaboration 2014 Conference
Date: October 21-24, 201
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
More information: http://seayac.org/?fp_type=seayac2014

b) The 225th American Astronomical Society Conference
Date: January 4-8, 2015
Location: Seattle, Washington, USA
More information: http://aas.org/meetings/aas225

c) East Asian Young Astronomers Meeting 2015
Date: February 9-12, 2015
Location: Taipei, Taiwan
More information: http://www.eacoa.net/event/20150209/

d) 2nd International Conference on Light Pollution Theory, Modelling and Measurements (LPTMM)
Date: May 26-29, 2015
Location: Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
More information: http://lptmm.org

e) 3rd International conference on Artificial Light at Night (ALAN 2015)
Date: May 30 - June 1, 2015
Location: Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
Website available soon

f) The 29th IAU General Assembly
Date: August 3-14, 2015
Location: Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA
More information: http://astronomy2015.org/

8) Contribution to this newsletter

We are looking for news for astronomical education and outreach events, if you are organizing any large scale events at regional and international levels, offering position for astronomy education or communications, having any special innovative projects or inspiring stories, looking for professional-amateur collaboration in astronomy, or created any educational resources, please send us an email at outreach@iau.org.