Activities for the International Year of Astronomy

Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi

In collaboration with : Please let us know if we may include the name of your organisation (or you individually) in this collaborative effort

We have been counting down to the International Year of Astronomy since 2007, so we expect to stretch the 2009 celebrations from 2007 to 2012 :-)

One of the thrust areas of this celebration will be, to make attempts to ensure that a large number of children from all over India, get a chance to view through a reasonable aperture telescope, and appreciate the craters on the Moon, the Galilean Moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn and the phases of Venus. And yes, view double stars, bright clusters and nebulae. Not just view - also enjoy doing something a little quantitative - pull out some numbers from nature and find out how accurately these numbers have been extracted, while enjoying this process of extraction :-)

Outlined here are 9 groups of activities that we hope to carry through, in as many regions and with as many children as possible (resources permitting).

The structure of these activities have been made in such a manner that there is a beginning with simple naked eye observations, moving on to views and measurements through moderate aperture telescopes, on to a virtual experience of modern day multiwavelength studies and finally a glimpse of the latest excitements in related areas of explorations.

A yahoogroup has been created to facilitate discussions between students and professional astronomers/educators. The group is at http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/Astronomy_Activities_2009/  Please do join the group and help us with the ongoing discussions connected with the activities. Some of the questions raised by members of the group and their related discussions are here.

Please do join us for any of these groups of activities, or help in any way possible through - feedback, sharing of resources, suggesting funding or sources for materials, sharing your thoughts and activities, volunteering for the conduction of activities - any which way that is possible, but, please do join hands with us.

(Please click on the images below, to go to the corresponding pages)

I.  Taare Sadak Par

A collaborative wiki based project for collecting a database of simple star count observations, under the "Taare Sadak Par" program is at the Taarewiki.

 

II. Gali mein Aaj Chand Nikla

III.

 

III.

 

   IV.

 

V.

 

VI.

  

VII.  A telescope treasure hunt! (Watch this space)

 

VIII.

 

                                          Inspiration of Astronomy in Art and Literature

(This segment will be updated soon)

  9. India's masonry and other heritage related to Astronomy

 

1. Awareness activities and work on the Calibration of the Jantar Mantar instruments of the Delhi and Jaipur Observatories

 

 

 

References and useful links

1.  http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sunspots/galileo.html

2.http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph iarticle_query?2001JBAA..111..266H&data_type=PDF_HIGH&whole_paper=YES&type=PRINTER&filetype=.pdf

 

(to be updated)