IYA2009 News Round-Up, 13 February 2009

13 February 2009

It's news round-up time! Brought to you today from an internet cafe, as I was made promises about internet instillation times that were not kept. But fear not, there's no stopping the IYA2009 updates!

It's always good to see local stories about IYA2009 events get some coverage in the media, so let's show our appreciation by hyperlinking to Chronicle-Tribune which is advertising a free show at the Marion Public Library, Grant County, Indiana. The programme in question is entitled "Visions of the Universe: Four Centuries of Discovery", and we are informed that it was created in honour of IYA2009. So it definitely deserves a mention here. The Mail Tribune has also been highlighting IYA2009 activities in the Southern Oregon area.

The Hindu reports that The State unit of Jana Vignana Vedika and Birla Science Centre is gearing up for two-day long activities to mark the quarter-centenary celebrations of invention of telescope by Galileo Galilei. The actual article is very short, and most of it has just been reproduced here.

Astronomy.com has posted a brief article about NASA releasing images from its great observatories  (Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra) to more than 100 planetariums, museums, nature centres and schools. The photos will be out of this world, ahaha.

2009 is an excellent time for amateur astronomers, as Mark Thompson would agree. His hobby has been under the spotlight in a feature for Norwich Evening News. Apparently, the home of Alan Partridge is also a centre for astronomy enthusiasts, as evidenced by the great number of activities planned in the area for IYA2009. Seeing conditions must be pretty good, if Mark's photos are anything to go by.

And finally, WRS Radio have kindly uploaded an audio file about astronomy in Switzerland, which is deserving of your attention if you are a) Swiss and b) fed up of reading words.

That's all there's time for this week. Quite literally, I'm about to be kicked out of the internet cafe for making my single drink last over two hours.

Lee Pullen

IYA2009 Staff Writer

 

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The International Year of Astronomy 2009 is endorsed by the United Nations and the International Council of Science.