Universe Today

Starting tomorrow (Oct. 22) professional and amateur astronomers around the world will be out in force to encourage as many people as possible to look through a telescope. The International Year of Astronomy 2009 Cornerstone project, Galilean Nights, will be a global experience, with more than 1000 public observing events in over 70 countries. If you participated in 100 Hours of Astronomy that took place in April 2009, this event is similar, but this time astronomers will be focusing on the objects that Galileo observed, especially with the Moon and Jupiter well-positioned in the evening sky.
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A collage of 21-day old Moons, sketched by Galileo, (left), an image from Jane Houston Jones' telescope, center, and Jane's sketch, right.

Amateur astronomers have different ways of documenting their observing sessions, such as taking astrophotos or keeping a logbook. Others, like Jane Houston Jones, employ an age-old method used by Galileo Galilei himself: they take pen in hand and sketch what they see through the lens of their telescope. During this International Year of Astronomy, Jones – an amateur astronomer who also happens to work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory — wanted to do something special to honor the legacy of Galileo, and decided to follow through with something she has been considering for quite a while. Jones is recreating all of Galileo’s astronomical sketches as she looks through a telescope similar in size to the one used by the father of modern observational astronomy. "Every time I look through a small telescope at these same objects that Galileo did, it just gives me chills," Jones said. "It fills me with wonder every time I think that I'm seeing the same view Galileo saw 400 years ago, and I wonder what was going through his mind as he made his observations."
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On Wednesday, Oct. 7, there will be an historic first at the US president's home: a star party. From a White House press release:

"The President and First Lady will host an event at the White House for middle-school students to highlight the President's commitment to science, engineering and math education as the foundation of this nation's global technological and economic leadership and to express his support for astronomy in particular – for its capacity to promote a greater awareness of our place in the universe, expand human knowledge, and inspire the next generation by showing them the beauty and mysteries of the night sky."

About 20 telescopes will be set up on the White House lawn focused on Jupiter, the Moon and select stars, and supporters of the International Year of Astronomy are encouraged to follow this event, and host their own star parties to follow the example set.
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Last week the GigaGalaxy Zoom project introduced an interactive 360-degree panorama of the entire night sky, and they promised more zoomable images to come. The second of three images is now available, and it is a wonderful 340-million-pixel vista of the central parts of our galactic home. Taken by Stéphane Guisard, an ESO engineer and world-renowned astrophotographer, the image shows the region spanning the sky from the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer) to Scorpius (the Scorpion). This mosaic was assembled from 52 different sky fields made from about 1200 individual images totalling 200 hours exposure time, with the final image having a size of 24,403 x 13,973 pixels. Click on the image to get access to larger versions of the image. Jump right in and enjoy the views!
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