Our special Perseids #Meteorwatch presentation, When Planets and Particles Collide – Part II, is now available for on-demand play. Click here to watch and listen. NOTE: The slides may take a moment to load.
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Now Available On-Demand
Thursday, August 12th, 2010Planets, Particles, and the Perseids!
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
WHAT: When Planets and Particles Collide – Part II
WHEN: Thursday, August 12, 9:00 pm EDT
WHERE: AFM*Radio
Join us Thursday night on AFM*Radio for a fun slideshow presentation featuring the Perseid Meteor Shower! Adapting last year’s When Planets and Particles Collide, we’ll focus on the Perseids as we talk about the differences between meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites; the mechanisms of meteor showers; and the night sky surrounding constellation Perseus. Science and Fun, all rolled into one!
NOTE: This special feature will be presented in Adobe Connect. Log-in here as a “guest”. You can then listen to the audio through the Adobe room, or mute the Adobe sound and listen via AFM*Radio.
Planning for the Perseids!
Friday, July 30th, 2010One of the year’s best meteor showers, the Perseids, is just days away! Astronomers and enthusiasts across the world are getting ready by sharing skywatching tips, planning local observing parties, and even hosting global virtual events.
My favorite Perseids events are AFM*Radio‘s live call-in updates and Adrian West’s Twitter #Meteorwatch. Both were fantastic successes last year, and we’re expecting even greater participation next week. This year, AFM*Radio will feature fun Perseids radio promos and live observing reports from the UBS crew in England; meanwhile, #Meteorwatch coordinators are already encouraging participation through Twitter conversation and that very cool video, above.
We encourage everyone to make a point to experience the Perseids. Visual observations require only a clear sky and comfortable setting. Audio observations (yes, we can “hear” meteors) require only a computer and an internet connection.
There are many ways to participate and share. You can post your pictures and meteor counts on Twitter, by including the #meteorwatch hashtag with your tweets; you can submit formal observation reports to the International Meteor Organization; you can post to your FaceBook page; or you can simply share with your friends and family.
If you’re new to the Perseids, this shower appears to originate from the constellation Perseus, which rises on your NE horizon at about 11pm local time. The best time to experience most meteor showers is in the hours between 2am and dawn, local time. However, with this year’s Perseid maximum being due between 1830 UT August 12 and 0700 UT August 13, earlier observations (beginning around midnight) are suggested for the Americas. Of course, Perseids aren’t limited to those maximum rate hours, so be sure to watch for them in the nights just before and after peak night. This year’s peak rate predictions are set at around 100 zhr, but most observers will likely see far less.
If your skies are too cloudy or too light-polluted to “see” the Perseids, you can try “hearing” their radar pings as they travel through the Earth’s atmosphere. This is actually a fun way to experience a meteor shower and you can still submit meteor counts and share the experience with others!
However you choose to participate, remember to be safe, comfortable, and patient! Be sure to check out our Fun Perseids Facts, below, and the American Meteor Society’s Observing Basics, here. You might also enjoy this Time article, dated 1926, or these real-sky images, from last year’s event. And don’t forget to tune in to AFM*Radio to catch those fun Perseids promos!
MicroBlogs Matter!
Monday, July 19th, 2010
“The Big Blog Theory” … I like the sound of that, don’t you?
Australia is celebrating their National Science Week with a competition to name Australia’s best science bloggers. With categories to include both full-scale and micro blogging, the Big Blog Theory acknowledges Australia’s best online science communicators and hopes to inspire other science enthusiasts to get involved.
There are many excellent finalists, including Marc West’s Mr. Science Show (regularly featured on AFM*Radio) and Natasha Mitchell’s All in the Mind. My favorite is the micro-blogging category’s Brains Matter – a podcast that features various fields of science and often includes expert interviews. Recent topics include palaeantology, Asian Elephant conservation, and galaxy evolution. Brain Matters regularly communicates on Twitter and has also contributed to 365 Days of Astronomy, with podcasts about asteroid Vesta and hypervelocity stars.
I am a huge fan of “micro” outreach. While there are many fantastic websites, podcasts, televisions shows, and magazines that reach millions of people, I believe that it is those lesser-known endeavors, such as microblogging, local presentations, and even simply data and image sharing, that often most inspire people; thus, their contributions could be considered especially important.
The lesser-known efforts – those microbloggers and local presenters – are often unrewarded, save for that most valuable prize of knowing that they have expanded others’ horizons. They work quietly in the shadows of the larger or more popular enterprises; they work at their own expense and on their own time; and they rarely, if ever, receive accolades. It is for this reason that we should make the extra effort to acknowledge their valuable contributions. While word-of-mouth is probably the greatest recognition, competitions can do much to applaud the efforts of these smaller entities.
Take a moment to explore the Big Blog Theory’s finalists, especially those in the microblogging category, and cast a vote for your favorites. And don’t just stop there. Anytime you see an opportunity to acknowledge an outreach effort, take advantage of it. Cast a vote, leave a comment, spread the word. All outreach is equally important, and we should all be concerned with encouraging its growth. Our support takes only a moment, yet has the potential to change a lifetime.
Grace Under Pressure – #ALD10
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
Ada Lovelace Day (aka #ALD10 on Twitter) is an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science. Women and men, all across the world, are encouraged to blog about the unsung heroines of these traditionally male-dominated fields, not only to acknowledge their contributions, but to teach us all a little more about the female history behind the development of our modern world.
While my post acknowledges the tremendous, yet humble, contributions of a female science teacher, I specifically chose this person because she also represents a less-talked-about issue facing so many women in particularly those fields traditionally “reserved” for men, such as science and technology – and that is the issue of being judged by our looks rather than our work. I have changed my “heroine’s” name to protect her privacy. In doing so, she is no less acknowledged, and probably even more recognizable as someone we’ve all known at some point in our lives.
In the Homestretch – the Race for Space!
Monday, February 1st, 2010
The 2nd Annual Shorty Awards has reached the crucial vote-off stage. If you didn’t participate in the nominations, now, more than ever, is the time to make your vote count!
This stage runs only five days, from February 1 through February 5, so head on over to the Shorty site to cast your votes for Space. All original nominations count as votes, so if you already voted for one of the finalists in the nominations stage, you don’t need to vote for them again in this finalists round. If you haven’t yet voted, please do! You can vote for more than one finalist in each category, but only once per finalist per category. Below, are the Space finalists, linked directly to their respective categories.
P.S. The #education category for which I was nominated did not make it into the official categories, so I am not a finalist. Thank you, so much, to all who voted for me in the nomination round; and congratulations to finalists NASA, Twitter ISS Alerts, Jen Scheer, and Newbury Astronomy – Go #Spacetweeps!
NASA in #government … Vote Here
twisst (Twitter ISS Alerts) in #science … Vote Here
FlyingJenny (Jen Scheer) in #science … Vote Here
NewburyAS (Newbury Astronomy) in #science … Vote Here
