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It’s About Time…It’s About Space! April 16, 2008

Posted by astroed in Astronomy, Education.
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Here is an event that should interest those of you in Sydney: Naomi is this year’s Powerhouse Wizard, a Science Leader at the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility and a great speaker. This will be well worth attending.

“The Powerhouse Discovery Centre at Castle Hill is hosting its next monthly Open Day on Saturday 10th of May 2008 titled It’s About Time…It’s About Space! The Open day program will include a range of activities themed around space, astronomy, and timekeeping, including, a very special behind-the-scenes tours of astronomy and timekeeping objects in the Powerhouse Museum Collection hosted by Sydney Observatory curator Dr Nick Lomb, solar telescope viewings, a free water rocket workshop for kids, and an illustrated lecture on the Milky Way by astrophysicist Dr Naomi McClure Griffiths. There will also be an evening of star-gazing from 6 – 8pm with the Sydney Observatory astronomers which will include complimentary tea, coffee, and pizza.”

International SKA Forum talks now available. April 16, 2008

Posted by astroed in Astronomy, Education.
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I spent a few days in Perth last week. The main purpose of my trip as to attend the International SKA Forum. This one-day meeting gave participants and up-to-date report on the Science case for this ambitious radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array. Other sessions addressed engineering developments, business engagement and presentations from the two short-listed candidate countries to hot the SKA; Australia and South Africa, on their sites and pathfinder telescopes, ASKAP and MeerKAT.

My presence was due to the inclusion of a half-hour slot on the education potential of the SKA. This was a pleasing inclusion and generated lots of interesting questions and ideas from the audience. Hopefully this will spur continued education programs over coming years as the SKA is developed. All of the talks are now available for download from the AuSKA website forum page. They provide a useful introduction to the scale and scope of this exciting project.