A new UNESCO-IAU online Portal to the Heritage of Astronomy has been launched today at the IAU's 28th General Assembly in Beijing, China. The site, which resides at http://www.astronomicalheritage.net, is a dynamic, publicly accessible database, discussion forum and document repository on astronomical heritage sites throughout the world, even if they are not on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

Buildings and monuments relating to astronomy throughout the ages stand as a tribute to the diverse and often complex ways in which people have rationalized the cosmos and framed their actions in accordance with their understanding of it. This includes, but is by no means restricted to, the development of modern science. The importance of the sky in human heritage was recognized by UNESCO when it established its Astronomy and World Heritage Initiative in 2003, and in 2008 it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the IAU (http://www.astronomy2009.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iya0803/). Since then, the two organizations have been working together to promote astronomical sites of potential "Outstanding Universal Value".

The online portal is the latest and potentially most significant deliverable from the accord set up between UNESCO and the IAU four years ago, and results directly from a collaboration between the IAU's Astronomy and World Heritage Working Group (AWHWG) and the Ancient Skies Project (http://www.ancient-skies.org) set up through the IYA2009 Astronomy and World Heritage Cornerstone Project. Professor Clive Ruggles, Emeritus Professor of Archaeoastronomy at the University of Leicester, UK, is Chair of the AWHWG. He said: "A lot of our most precious astronomical heritage -- both ancient and modern -- is under threat. If we don't act to try to protect and preserve it, we run the risk of losing it. Over the coming months and years this web portal will become 'the' vehicle for actively supporting, as well as sustaining, political and public interest in the promotion and protection of astronomical heritage sites, both cultural and natural."

A previous AWHWG milestone was the Thematic Study on Astronomical Heritage produced in 2010 by the IAU, working together with ICOMOS, UNESCO's advisory body for cultural sites. Endorsed by UNESCO's World Heritage Committee in 2010, the Thematic Study provides guidelines for UNESCO member states on the inscription of astronomical properties. Much of its content has been incorporated onto the portal.

The portal contains:

* a range of general information pages;

* thematic essays and case studies, searchable geographically and temporally using a specially developed "heritage finder" tool; and

* a discussion forum permitting authorized users to discuss current entries, propose additions and changes, propose new heritage entities (case studies), and discuss general issues.

The portal will not only feature sites and monuments, but also other types of astronomical heritage such as portable instruments and intangible cultural practices, as well as dark-sky places.

The database is dynamic, continually subject to update by peer review. For example, members of the AWHWG have been working over the past year to develop nine much more detailed Extended Case Studies which will be brought online after they have been discussed and approved at the IAU General Assembly. Several of them, it is hoped, will be a direct help in stimulating new World Heritage List nominations.

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Launch of UNESCO-IAU Astronomical Heritage Web Portal

Federal budget pressures in the US could force the organization that runs publicly funded observatories to divest itself of six telescopes. The list points to new priorities in astronomy.

For astronomers in the United States it's dj vu with a wrenching twist the possible closure of some of the most heavily used observatories the federal government funds.

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In 1995, the prospect of flat federal science budgets prompted calls to privatize or close workhorses such as the Kitt Peak Observatory near Tuscon, Ariz. That would ease the squeeze on other big-ticket observatory projects in the pipeline, the argument went.

Seventeen years later, telescopes at Kitt Peak, which avoided previous appointments with a broker, are again the budgetary bulls-eye.

This time the fiscal picture is far more bleak, and the projects in the pipeline are more ambitious. Thus, a panel advising the National Science Foundation (NSF) has recommended that the agency writing the checks for publicly supported observatories divest itself of six facilities as quickly as possible over the next four years.

The goal is to ensure enough federal research dollars to allow the US to participate in high-priority observatory projects through the end of the decade and have enough money left to supply research grants astronomers and their grad students need to use the new telescopes.

Aside from Kitt Peak's three largest telescopes, the divest-it list includes a gleaming white, 328-foot-diameter radio telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Greenbank, W. Va., facility dedicated 12 years ago and built at a cost of nearly $60 million. Four other scientifically productive telescopes or telescope arrays scopes are on the list as well.

Grappling with the issue wasn't easy, notes Debra Fischer, a Yale University astronomer who served on the advisory panel making the recommendations. Federally funded observatories serve as portals to the universe for a large number of astronomers who don't populate the faculties of universities with fiscal angels or pockets sufficiently deep to build their own observatories.

The rest is here:

Which telescopes could lose out in astronomy's big budget crunch?

Observatories in Britain, France and the United States, a pharaonic temple in Egypt, a 3,000-year-old pillar in China and a 1920s tower in Berlin have been inscribed on a UN-backed heritage list for astronomy, unveiled on Friday.

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UN launches 'Heritage of Astronomy' portal

The online astronomy project - Galaxy Zoo - is searching for Chinese people to help categorize galaxies in the universe. The Zoo, which has no animals but more than one million galaxies, was set up in 2007 by a group of astronomers who found it impossible to classify the numerous galaxies. So they turned to the public and are now seeking help from the Chinese.

"I hope Chinese people will love to see the beautiful pictures of the galaxies as much as we do. I know they have a pretty long history of astronomy," said Karen Masters, leader of the science team of the Galaxy Zoo project and research fellow at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth, in Britain.

She was speaking at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) 28th General Assembly, in Beijing (Aug. 20-31, 2012).

"We live in a universe filled with galaxies with an amazing variety of sizes and shapes," said Masters, who introduced the project and said she was looking forward to having Chinese people join the project to learn more about the universe.

Within 24 hours of its launch five years ago, the website was receiving 70,000 hits an hour, with more than 50 million hits during its first year from almost 150,000 people. Now, more than 655,000 people have registered to help scientific researchers, said Masters, winner of the 2008 IAU Fellowship.

The science team has also published papers using the contributions from the participants of the Zoo.

"It just followed the trend of Internet research," Masters said, talking about the development of the project.

The female scientist, who has Chinese American husband and mother of two, said a Polish and German version of the project exists and is in the process of translating terms into Chinese.

She said, "The Chinese language will help people to better understand the questions on our website. To explore a Chinese version requires native speakers to make sure the term is right in the Chinese language. We hope some astronomers will want to volunteer for the job."

Using galaxy pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope, which went into orbit by NASA in 1990, the Zoo allows amateur astronomers to map the obscure corners of the universe and is a citizen science project.

The rest is here:

Astronomy project hunts for Chinese helpers

The fourth annual Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition has received a record number of entries. Back-garden amateurs and professional photographers alike have captured spectacular images such as huge eruptions shooting from the Suns surface, the dazzling green and red lights of the aurora borealis, and spectacular clouds of colourful dust in which new stars are forming.

The winners of the competitions four categories and three special prizes will be announced on 19 September and an exhibition of all the winning images opens the following day on 20 September at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. The competitions judges include The Sky at Nights Sir Patrick Moore, acclaimed photographer Dan Holdsworth and the ROGs Public Astronomer Dr. Marek Kukula.

We will publish a picture gallery of the winners as soon as they are annnounced. Here is a selection of the entries that have been received. For more information see http://www.rmg.co.uk/visit/exhibitions/astronomy-photographer-of-the-year/

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The 2012 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition

With over one million observations since it launch on April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has been a endless source for insane wonders, unprecedented scenes and humbling experiences. However, many of its most amazing images have never been seen before by anyoneuntil now. In fact, some images actually show objects that nobody knew existed before.

These are, as the European Space Agency calls them, Hubble's hidden treasuresthe unknown secret galaxies and stars that have remained unseen in the Space Telescope's data vaults until the ESA asked the public to dive in on a quest to find them. What people have found is amazing.

According to ESA:

[Of the million observations] only a small proportion are attractive imagesand an even smaller number are ever actually seen by anyone outside the small groups of scientists that publish them. But the vast amount of data in the archive means that there are still many hundreds of beautiful images scattered among the valuable, but visually unattractive, scientific data that have never been enjoyed by the public.

Knowing that, ESA opened the vaults to everyone. A few months later, they had 3,000 submissions in their servers, all of them beautiful. "More than a thousand of these images were fully processed," says ESA, "a difficult and time-consuming task."

Incredibly enough, there was no payment for all these image hunting and processing hours done by the public except a few small prizes for the top ten in two categoriesbasic imaging and image processing. The volunteers did it all out of the love for the quest, a desire to explore and find something that nobody has seen before in this way.

Here are the results:

The winner of the image processing category was Josh Lake, for the star-forming region NGC 1763, followed by Andre van der Hoeven and his image of the spiral galaxy Messier 77. My favorite, however, is this one, found and processed by Judy Schmidt, a web developer from Lakeside, California. It's the star XZ Tauri. According to the European Space Agency, this was the jury's favorite. In fact, thanks to her work, they found "an unusual object that we would never have found without her help."

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Amateurs Uncover Stunning Hidden Treasures In Hubble's Image Vaults [Astronomy]

An airliner flies across the Sun, a Perseid meteor streaks across the sky and the dazzling green and red lights of the aurora borealis light up a mountain.

These are some of the awe-inspiring entries in the 2012 Astronomy Photographer of the Year award.

Now in its fourth year, the competition, run by The Royal Observatory, showcases the work of amateur astro-photographers from around the world.

A long exposure was needed to get the Perseid meteor over the light-painted double arch in Americas Arches National Park in Utah.

The Perseids peak every August when the Earth passes through the remains of the comet Swift-Tutt.

Another picture looks like one of the pillars of creation. The column of dust and emerging stars known as the Elephants Trunk can be found in the constellation of Cepheus.

Trunk doesnt quite capture its magnitude. This natural creation is 20 light years long and 3,000 light years away from us.

The true scale and complexity of the Orion Nebula is seen in all its detailed glory by another entrant. To the naked eye, this constellation appears only as a small patch of hazy light among the stars of Orions sword.

The aurora was seen in its iridescent glory above the Hgtuva mountain in northern Norway. It occurs 80km (50 miles) above the Earths surface as charged particles hit our atmosphere.

Winners will be announced on September 19 with a free exhibition at the observatory opening to the public the next day. It runs until February.

More here:

Stunning images entered for 2012 Astronomy Photographer of the Year

[BAFacts are short, tweetable astronomy/space facts that I post every day. On some occasions, they wind up needing a bit of a mathematical explanation. The math is pretty easy, and it adds a lot of coolness, which I'm passing on to you! You're welcome.]

Todays BAFact: Jupiter is so big you could fit every other planet in the solar system inside it with room to spare.

Volume is a tricky thing. Our brains are pretty good at judging relative linear sizes of things: this thing is twice as long as that thing, for example. But volume increases far more rapidly than linear size. Take a cube where each side is one centimeter. It has a volume of one cubic centimeter (cc). Now double the length of each side to 2 cm. It looks twice as big, but its volume goes up to 8 cc! The volume of a cube is a the length x width x height, so there you go.

Spheres are the same way: the volume increases with the cube of the radius. Specifically, volume = 4/3 x x (radius)3. So one sphere might look slightly larger than another, but in fact have a lot more volume.

Such is the way of Jupiter. I see pictures of it compared to the other planets, and honestly Saturn looks only slightly smaller Saturns radius is about 60,000 km compared to Jupiters 71,000. But that turns out to make a huge difference in volume!

Heres a table I created to compare the planets. The first number column is the planets equatorial radius in kilometers (the biggest planets arent perfect spheres, but as youll see this doesnt matter). The second number column is the volume in cubic km based on that radius. The third is the volume of the planet divided by the volume of Jupiter (so that ratio = 1 for Jupiter itself). The last column is the same, but rounded to two decimal places to make it easier to read.

The big conclusion here is pretty obvious when you look at that last column. Even though Saturn is only a little smaller than Jupiter, it only has 60% of the big guys volume! Uranus and Neptune together are only another 9%. If you combine all the planets in our solar system, they add up to only about 70% of Jupiters volume. That leaves a lot of room left over for all the moons and asteroids in the solar system, too!

So Jupiter really is a monster. Theres a half-joke astronomers say: The solar system consists of the Sun, Jupiter, and assorted rubble. As you can see, thats really not that far off from the truth!

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BAFact Math: Jupiter is big enough to swallow all the rest of the planets whole | Bad Astronomy

The 6th International Olympiad on astronomy and Astrophysics in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Belarusian schoolchildren took one gold and two bronze medals, as well as two praiseworthy sheet. Correspondent BakuToday the Observatory told Belarusian State University Victor Gorenkov.

The Olympics ended on 14 August, Belarus was represented by five Parties: Rosa Novitskaya (the Lyceum of BELARUSIAN STATE UNIVERSITY, Minsk) won the gold medal, Julia Korenovskaya (also the Lyceum of BELARUSIAN STATE UNIVERSITY, Minsk) won the bronze medal, Eugene Obukhiv (the gymnasium No. 1 city of Grodno) won the bronze medal. Honourable sheets got two more Minsk students- Mikhail Kushev (the gymnasium No. 29) and the Maria Goshka (the gymnasium No. 50).

Belarusian schoolchildren have traditionally win prizes at international competitions in astronomy. In 2011, with those Olympics they took three medals.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, BakuToday, guide of Belarus has set itself the task of winning national team at the Olympics in London 25 medals, including five gold. After doping scandal in Belarusian with hope piggy Ostapchuk medals on the London Olympics 2012 year 12 Awards (2 Gold, 5 Silver and 5 bronze medals) and 26-th place in the overall ranking of the national teams.

See the article here:

Belarusian students won the 6th International Olympiad on astronomy and Astrophysics

Associated Universities (AUI) and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) have made a preliminary examination of the report from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Astronomy Portfolio Review Committee (PRC).

Among the recommendations of that report are that the NSF's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) be fully divested from the NSF Astronomy Division's portfolio of research facilities in the next five years, with no further funding from the Astronomy Division.

AUI and NRAO recognize and acknowledge the need to retire obsolete facilities to make way for the state-of-the-art. However, both the GBT and the VLBA are the state-of-the-art, and have crucial capabilities that cannot be provided by other facilities.

Separately the two telescopes provide unparalleled scientific access to the universe. When their information is combined, the instruments provide the highest sensitivity and resolution available for any astronomical instrument in the world.

The Green Bank Telescope The GBT, located in Green Bank, West Virginia, is the largest and most capable fully steerable single-dish radio telescope in the world. It is a cutting-edge research instrument at the height of its powers, and it is continually growing more capable through the introduction of low-cost upgrades to its light detecting and processing electronics. It is the only world-class astronomical telescope in the eastern United States and has been in full scientific operation for less than 10 years.

Weighing sixteen million pounds, and able to precisely point its 2.3 acres of light-collecting surface area anywhere within all but the southernmost 15 percent of the celestial sphere, the $95 million GBT is an engineering and scientific marvel unlikely to be recreated, much less surpassed, by American astronomy for decades to come.

Indeed, astronomers in other parts of the world are at work trying to build their own telescopes of similar concept and design to the GBT, but none of those telescopes will exceed its performance.

The GBT is used by astronomers and students around the world for important research. It is a powerful tool for searching out the molecular building blocks of life in space, for probing the nature of matter at extreme densities, for mapping diffuse clouds of intergalactic gas that are invisible to other telescopes, for finding beacons in space that can serve as mileposts for calibrating our understanding of cosmic distance scales and the characteristics of dark energy, for detecting gravity waves first predicted by Einstein, and for pioneering and experimenting with new observational tools and techniques.

The GBT's annual cost of operation is about 0.7 percent of the annual federal budget for astronomy and astrophysics, but the cost of replacing it, once it's gone, would be enormous. In an era of constrained budgets, leveraging and improving the existing state-of-the-art through low-cost technology upgrades (the development of which often involves students) is a cost-effective way to keep science moving forward.

Today's GBT, because of such improvements, is 10 to 100 times more powerful than the original telescope, which entered full science operations in 2003. With small upgrades, the GBT has substantial potential to continue on this upward arc of increasing scientific power.

Continued here:

AUI and NRAO Comment On NSF's Astronomy Portfolio Review Committee

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — The director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank says a recommendation to de-fund the operation within five years would be a serious blow to the world's astronomers.

Originally posted here:

Panel recommends cutting funds for W.Va. telescope

Associated Universities Inc. (AUI) and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) have made a preliminary examination of the report released today from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Astronomy Portfolio Review Committee (PRC). Among the recommendations of that report are that the NSF's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) be fully divested from the NSF Astronomy Division's portfolio of research facilities in the next five years, with no further funding from the Astronomy Division.

AUI and NRAO recognize and acknowledge the need to retire obsolete facilities to make way for the state-of-the-art. However, both the GBT and the VLBA are the state-of-the-art, and have crucial capabilities that cannot be provided by other facilities. Separately the two telescopes provide unparalleled scientific access to the universe. When their information is combined, the instruments provide the highest sensitivity and resolution available for any astronomical instrument in the world.

The Green Bank Telescope

The GBT, located in Green Bank, West Virginia, is the largest and most capable fully steerable single-dish radio telescope in the world. It is a cutting-edge research instrument at the height of its powers, and it is continually growing more capable through the introduction of low-cost upgrades to its light detecting and processing electronics. It is the only world-class astronomical telescope in the eastern United States and has been in full scientific operation for less than 10 years.

Weighing sixteen million pounds, and able to precisely point its 2.3 acres of light-collecting surface area anywhere within all but the southernmost 15 percent of the celestial sphere, the $95 million GBT is an engineering and scientific marvel unlikely to be recreated, much less surpassed, by American astronomy for decades to come. Indeed, astronomers in other parts of the world are at work trying to build their own telescopes of similar concept and design to the GBT, but none of those telescopes will exceed its performance.

The GBT is used by astronomers and students around the world for important research. It is a powerful tool for searching out the molecular building blocks of life in space, for probing the nature of matter at extreme densities, for mapping diffuse clouds of intergalactic gas that are invisible to other telescopes, for finding beacons in space that can serve as mileposts for calibrating our understanding of cosmic distance scales and the characteristics of dark energy, for detecting gravity waves first predicted by Einstein, and for pioneering and experimenting with new observational tools and techniques.

The GBT's annual cost of operation is about 0.7 percent of the annual federal budget for astronomy and astrophysics, but the cost of replacing it, once it's gone, would be enormous. In an era of constrained budgets, leveraging and improving the existing state-of-the-art through low-cost technology upgrades (the development of which often involves students) is a cost-effective way to keep science moving forward. Today's GBT, because of such improvements, is 10 to 100 times more powerful than the original telescope, which entered full science operations in 2003. With small upgrades, the GBT has substantial potential to continue on this upward arc of increasing scientific power.

The Very Long Baseline Array

Comprising ten radio dish antennas distributed across 5,351 miles from Hawaii to the U.S. Virgin Islands -- a span equal to two-thirds Earth's diameter -- the VLBA is astronomy's sharpest tool, the world's largest, highest-resolution dedicated telescope (of any kind). It is capable of creating detailed images of portions of the sky so tiny that they are covered by but one pixel of a Hubble Space Telescope camera.

Commissioned in 1993, the VLBA is now up to 5,000 times more powerful than it was originally, thanks to new state-of-the-art receivers and a data processing supercomputer installed in 2010.

Originally posted here:

Initial Public Statement From AUI and NRAO on the Report of the NSF's Astronomy Portfolio Review Committee

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The US astronomy budget is facing unprecedented cuts with potential closures of several facilities. A new report by the National Science Foundations Division of Astronomical Sciences says that available funding for ground-based astronomy could undershoot projected budgets by as much as 50%. The report recommends the closure called divestment in the new document of iconic facilities such as the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) and the Green Bank Radio Telescope, as well as shutting down four different telescopes at the Kitt Peak Observatory by 2017.

Divestment from these highly successful, long-running facilities will be difficult for all of us in the astronomical community, reads the AST Panel Review, Advancing Astronomy in the Coming Decade: Opportunities and Challenges. We must, however, consider the science tradeoff between divesting existing facilities and the risk of devastating cuts to individual research grants, mid-scale projects, and new initiatives. The National Science Foundation funds the majority of ground-based astronomy facilities and research in the US. Every ten years, the astronomy community puts out a Decadal Review, which reviews and identifies the highest priority research activities for astronomy and astrophysics in the next decade, recommending important science goals and facilities.

With the budget trouble the US has encountered since the 2010 decadal survey, called New Worlds, New Horizons, (NWNH), the money available through the NSF for astronomy is much less than hoped for. Experts say that the Fiscal Year 2012 astronomy budget is already is $45 million below the NWNH model, and predictions say and the gap may grow to $75 million to $100 million by 2014.

In response to these projections, the US astronomy community convened a new panel to go through NWNH to come up with a set of recommendations of how to live within the means of a smaller budget basically what to cut and what to keep.

The federal budget looks nothing like it did when NWNH was underway, said Dr. Debra Elmegreen from Vassar College in New York, and a member of the 2010 Decadal Review Committee, and I really hope nondiscretionary defense spending will not be slashed beyond repair. Congress needs to understand that the nations leadership in science is at risk if science funding is not maintained at an adequate level. But Elmegreen told Universe Today she was impressed with the new panels review.

The committee faced a very difficult task in trying to allow implementation of the Decadal recommendations while maintaining the strong programs and facilities that NSF has been supporting, in the face of extremely bleak budget projections, she said, and I am impressed with their report. The committee seemed to take great care in considering what resources grant programs, facilities, instrumentation, technological and computation development would be necessary to achieve progress in each of the very exciting primary science drivers outlined in NWNH.

The new panels came up with two possible scenarios to deal with the projected budget shortfalls. The more optimistic of the two scenarios, Scenario A, sees funding at the end of the decade at only 65% of what was expected by NWNH. The less optimistic scenario, B, predicts only 50% of projected funding.

Link:

US Astronomy Facing Severe Budget Cuts and Facility Closures

In a ceremony in Tucson, Ariz., on Aug. 7, Philip Deutschle, co-chair of the Science Department at Salinas High School and adjunct astronomy instructor at Hartnell College, was awarded the Thomas J.

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Salinas astronomy instructor is star in his field

Mumbai, Aug. 16 -- Alankar Kotwal has always had stars in his eyes. Now, has a gold medal in his hands. Kotwal, 18, an astronomy enthusiast and a first year student at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay was part of the astronomy Olympiad team that returned from International Olympiad in Astronomy and Astrophysics in Brazil on Wednesday with five medals. Kotwal won gold, in addition to ...

Originally posted here:

Astro Olympiad gold for city boy

Astronomy experts Jay Lawson and Adam Kremers will set up high-powered telescopes to view the moons of Jupiter, the Milky Way galaxy and other objects in the night sky from 8 to 11 p.m. Saturday at Washoe Lake State Park.

Continued here:

Stargazing with astronomy experts

One of my favorite aspects of astronomy is how it tackles the biggest questions we humans have. How did this all begin? What is the ultimate fate of the Universe?

Are we alone?

Oh, that last one. Such an interesting question, and one that for centuries has been essentially unanswerable due to a lack of solid data. But thats changed very recently. Weve started exploring other planets up close. Weve been able to listen to potential signals from other civilizations. And weve begun to get a handle on how many habitable planets there might be in the Universe.

The BBC Future blog asked me to write up my thoughts on this for their clever series, "Will we ever?", and so I did: "Will we ever find life elsewhere in the universe?" is now online.

Ill note this is an opinion piece, but its based on the best data I know about these three avenues of inquiry: physical inspection of other worlds in our solar system, listening for E.T., and observing planets around other stars. Given the current state-of-the-art, and where these programs are going, I predict which of these three I think will pay off first assuming life is out there to find.

I wont spoil it here. Go read the article!

[Note: In June, I also wrote a piece for them called Will We Ever Live on the Moon? which you may also enjoy.]

Related Posts:

- Will we ever live on the Moon? - 50 new worlds join the exoplanet list - Success: SETI array back on track! - Enceladus does and does not have a global ocean - Huge lakes of water may exist under Europas ice

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Will we find life in space? | Bad Astronomy

This month, CJR presents Required Skimming, a daily miniguide to our staffers beats and obsessions, ranging from finance to food. If we overlooked any of your must-read destinations, please tell us in the comments.

Space.com: The most comprehensive website devoted the latest happenings in astronomy, space exploration, and sky watching.

NBCNews.coms Cosmic Log: Science editor Alan Boyle delivers diverse, often quirky, observations and commentary on topics ranging from space and cosmology to quantum physics and cutting-edge technology.

Discover Magazines Bad Astronomy blog: Astronomer-turned-writer Phil Plait provides expert analysis of hot topics in space and cosmology, from solar storms to exoplanets, often with a refreshing dose of media criticism.

NASA Watch: Critical analysis of the US space program, American politics and policy, the commercial spaceflight industry, and the International Space Station.

Spaceflight Now: Up-to-date information on the latest manned and unmanned space missions and launch schedules in the US and worldwide.

Wireds Beyond Apollo blog: Author and space historian David S.F. Portree covers the latest in exploration and technology with an emphasis on missions and programs planned but not flown (that is, the vast majority of them).

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Required skimming: space and astronomy

Story Created: Aug 10, 2012 at 8:07 AM PDT

Story Updated: Aug 10, 2012 at 10:14 AM PDT

To celebrate the meteor shower the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History will be holding an Astronomy Extravaganza this Saturday.

To tell us more about the incoming meteor shower we welcomed the museum's Astronomy Programs Manager, Javier Rivera, to our set for KEY News This Morning. Rivera even made us a comet on set.

The Astronomy Extravaganza will take place at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History this Saturday from ten a.m. to ten p.m. It will feature comet demos, planetarium shows, a free telescope raffle as well as an assortment of other activities.

For more information go to sbnature.org/about/385.html.

Continued here:

Astronomy Extravaganza at S.B. Museum of Natural History

August 9, 2012 Veterans Park hosts astronomy night

Anonymous Cordele Dispatch The Cordele Dispatch Thu Aug 09, 2012, 02:00 PM EDT

Cordele Georgia Veterans State Park will host an astronomy night Saturday, Aug. 11 from 9 to 11 p.m. on the astronomy field south of the airplane exhibit.

Participants should pick up star charts and other information and pay the $1 program fee at the park office.

Meteors from the Perseid meteor shower will be at their peak. Also visible that evening will be Saturn, Mars and first magnitude stars such as Arcturus, Antares and Vega.

Telescopes and astronomical binoculars will be set up in the astronomy field, but visitors may bring their own eqiupment if they wish.

This program is dependent on the weather and may be cancelled due to cloud cover, rain or lightning.

More information is available by calling the park office at 276-2371.

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Veterans Park hosts astronomy night