"100 Hours of Astronomy"

Dear all,

I'm writing to let you know about the upcoming "100 Hours of Astronomy" event from 2-5 April (it's a major IYA2009 cornerstone project). There will be many public events worldwide, including star parties, other sidewalk astronomy events, an opening ceremony at the Franklin Institute featuring one of Galileo's telescopes, and some unique webcasts. There's more information at http://www.100hoursofastronomy.org/

In particular, here at ESO, we're coordinating the global 24-hour live webcast "Around the World in 80 Telescopes". It runs from 09:00 GMT/UT on Friday 3 April to 09:00 GMT/UT on Saturday 4 April.

Although it's being coordinated from here, it's not just ESO telescopes involved.

We want to give people a snapshot of life at some of the most advanced telescopes both on and off the planet. Highlights include Hawaii telescopes (including Keck, Gemini, Subaru), telescopes in the Canary Islands, the Southern African Large Telescope, Chilean observatories such as the VLT, space-based telescopes including Hubble, and even observatories at the South Pole (IceCube, SPT). In fact, we have astronomers joining us from every continent!

A description, schedule, and a sneak preview video from our technical tests is available at:
http://www.100hoursofastronomy.org/component/content/article/34/75
and we also have a Twitter feed: http://www.twitter.com/telescopecast

You can watch us free, online, on the website given above or at Ustream on
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/100-hours-of-astronomy

As well as individuals, schools, astronomy clubs and science centres are encouraged to show the webcast to groups during "100 Hours of Astronomy". You can also embed the video player on your own website.

We'll be showing previously-unseen astronomical images, chatting to astronomers around the world to find out what they're doing right now, and inviting viewers to send in messages and questions via the website (we'll read out as many as we can during the webcast).

Please help us spread the word about the webcast as widely as possible, as we'd like to share it with as many people as we can.

Best wishes,

Douglas

--
Dr Douglas Pierce-Price, ALMA Outreach / Education
ESO, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2,
D-85748 Garching bei Muenchen, Germany.