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Tag: Canada
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I had a blast over the 100 Hours weekend, having the good fortune to participate, if only as an audience member, in the only webcast to originate out of Canada. The University of Calgary’s Rothney Astrophysical Observatory was the only Canadian site to partake in the Around the World in 80 Telescopes webcast marathon. And it was a party!
Rather than feature yet another observatory control room in our webcast, observatory director Dr. Phil Langill hosted an open house, to highlight the Observatory’s role in public outreach. So a visitor centre full of astronomy fans showed up to cheer on Phil and wave to the world during our appointed time slot on Friday evening.
The webcast went great — to everyone’s relief, as some technical glitches during testing caused some gnashing of teeth 30 minutes before air time. (Above is the scene from our side of the webcam, as Phil talked to host Colleen Sharkey.)
But we showed the world! There we were, in the spirit of IYA, presenting astronomy live to the public, both locally and, through the magic of the web, to the world. We even got some air time and coverage on the local CTV news (as seen below).
What a wonderful day the marathon webcast was. I tried to catch as much of it live as I could (and have watched a number of other programs through the recorded feeds). It really was like visiting the observatories, something I love to do as I travel the world. I saw places familiar and exotic, and people I knew and many others I hope to meet one day. But wherever the webcast was coming from, everyone had the same dedication to the cause of promoting astronomy. What an amazing global village we live in! What other science has such a community of people so passionate about their science and so willing to take the time to tell the world about it. None of the professional researchers and technicians had to do it — the webcast took valuable time out of a busy schedule. But they all did. And I bet they all had a great time doing it, and having the chance to meet and talk to each other over the 24 hours. We really came together — all due to the great efforts of the people at ESO who set it up. Bravo! They deserve all our thanks and praise. The marathon was a memorable highlight of what has already been an amazing year.
For us in Calgary, while we were the only webcast site in Canada, we were one of about 50 other events going on across the country over the 100 Hours weekend. Some were lectures and science cafes. But most were star parties of some description.
We hosted one, too. On the Saturday the Observatory presented a “Bring Your Own Telescope” star party to encourage those closet astronomers to get those telescopes out of the closet and learn how to set them up with some expert advice. This was a first for us, and is an idea worth working on for future star parties. And we have a lot of them to come — the Year of Astronomy still has nine more months to go!
PS.: You can watch the RAO's recorded webcast at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1339781
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