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Calling Astroperazzi

January 31, 2009 By

PrintTalking about science is tough. Luckily the Universe is a beautiful place and we astronomers can let our images do the talking. But many of the most accomplished photographers of the skies don’t do astronomy for money: they’re the thousands of people who love stargazing and spend night after night in search for the perfect picture of the Universe. This year, the Royal Greenwich Observatory, in association with the BBC Sky at Night magazine are organising an astrophotography competition, the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2009. Anyone with a keen eye and a nifty camera can submit their pictures to the competition and its associated Flickr group, in the following categories:

  • Earth and space
  • Our solar system
  • Deep space

There’s a separate category for the under-16s. Prizes in all categories and conditions are listed on the website. A few of my fellow astro-bloggers (Will and Chris) are on the judging panel, as is astronomer extraordinaire Sir Patrick Moore.

If you’re more an astronomerof the arm-chair or office-bound type like myself, you can still enjoy the competition by checking out the images submitted so far on the Flickr site!

APOTY logo courtesy & copyright NMM/Royal Observatory Greenwich

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Tell Hubble where to go!

January 28, 2009 By

Are you fed up with seeing images from the Hubble Space Telescope of objects just just don’t care about? Think it’s all a big scam? Now is the time to speak up, as NASA have opened up Hubble’s observations to democracy. As part of the IYA initiative 100 Hours of Astronomy, you can vote for Hubble’s target of observation until 1 March, from the following objects:

  • Star forming region NGC 6643
  • Planetary nebula NGC 6072
  • Planetary nebula NGC 40
  • Spiral galaxy NGC 5172
  • Edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4289
  • Interacting galaxies Arp 274

Personally my vote would go to the targets most likely to be very active, i.e. star forming region or the pair of interacting galaxy (I say this without reading anything about the particular objects so forgive me if I’m wrong). But Hubble’s never looked at any of these objects before so the observation is bound to produce a pretty picture, if not some great science. The winning image will be released in early April.

For voting and more background info from the Hubble folks go here.

Posts by Phil and Stu here and here.

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Tuesday words of wisdom

January 27, 2009 By

I’m having a particularly intense few days with back to back meetings on different projects and my mind is approaching information overload. So I’m having a relaxing mini time-out to catch up on news and emails, down here in snowy Bavaria. I haven’t got much intelligent to say so thought I’d share some words of wisdom from David Attenborough, quoted in today’s Guardian. Enjoy.

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How green is your telescope?

January 23, 2009 By

A promiment scientist at the University of Texas in Austin has pulled out of a major telescope project, SOFIA, because of his concerns about the environmental impact of the mission.  Prof. John Lacy felt he couldn’t support a project that excessivly harms the environment. SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is a 2.5 m telescope that will fly high above the Earth’s surface on board a modified Boeing 747SP plane. Due for first (f)light in 2010, SOFIA will be able to detect radiation from mid-infrared to submillimetre wavelengths. Light at these energies is abosorbed by water molecules in the atmosphere, and by flying the telescope on a plane above much of the absorbing gas scientists can avoid those losses without having to launch a satellite into space, which is costly and difficult to upgrade or fix. The SOFIA plane is expected to fly four times a week, for up to 12 hours a time – so it’s easy to understand Lacy’s concerns.

The Texas media found out about Lacy’s withdrawal from the US-German project and ran a story about it – read it here.

[Read more...]

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Methane on Mars: The fall-out

January 19, 2009 By

I mentioned The Sun’s bizarre and, well, inaccurate coverage of the Mars methane story before. Quite a bit has been said and blogged about the way the media dealt with the story and I just wanted to post some links with people’s thoughts on the matter.

Bad Astronomer gives his opinion, points towards the good and the bad.

Dave Mosher calls for better standards in science reporting over on Discovery Space.

The Spacewriter urges caution.

More as and when I spot it.

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