Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2010

23 July 2009

The conference "Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2010 - communicating in IYA2009 legacy era" will take place in Cape Town, South Africa, from 15 to 19 March, 2010: http://www.communicatingastronomy.org/cap2010/index.html

Following the previous conferences in this series, it aims to answer the modern challenges in astronomy communication through a global perspective. A major theme of CAP2010 will be the outcome and legacy of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 and techniques for how to make public astronomical knowledge global and accessible to everyone across national, language, political, social and cultural borders and impairment limitations.

This conference builds on the astounding success of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009). It will bring together producers of astronomical information (research scientists), public information officers (connected with large observatories and space missions), and mediators (science reporters and writers, staff members from museums, planetariums). A major theme of CAP2010 is be the outcome of the IYA2009 activities, their evaluation and plans for future work. Furthermore, as this meeting will be held in South Africa, another major theme will be ‘stimulating astronomical communication in the emerging world'.

Some of the key topics of CAP2010 are:

* Reports from IYA2009 National Nodes, Organisational Nodes, Cornerstone projects with an emphasis on the IYA2009 legacy

* Challenges and successes: Case studies from real life

* Crowdsourcing/Citizen science projects

* Communicating in the social networking/Web 2.0 mediascape:

twitter/youtube/facebook/vodcasting

* Audiovisual & multimedia communication incl. tools and techniques

* News ways to exploit and visualize astronomical data.

* Social impact and evaluation of astronomy communication

* Alternative ways of communicating

* EPO Clearinghouses: Portal to the Universe, COMpadre, etc.

* Evaluation and lessons for the future

Second announcement with info on fees, local events and a call for papers is planned for 24 August 2009. Note that there will not be sessions in parallel so the number of oral talks is limited.

It is planned that the Wednesday afternoon will be free for a "social event". Other events will likely be planned at the two weekends (possibly a visit to SALT: http://www.salt.ac.za). Please register your interest in this conference on the mailing list at: http://www.communicatingastronomy.org/cap2010/mailinglist.html

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