Star Stryder » Events http://www.starstryder.com Blogging one sidereal day at a time Sun, 29 Jan 2012 23:47:15 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 There be Dragons (& Voorwerps) http://www.starstryder.com/2010/08/23/there-be-dragons-voorwerps/ http://www.starstryder.com/2010/08/23/there-be-dragons-voorwerps/#comments Tue, 24 Aug 2010 03:32:15 +0000 pamela http://www.starstryder.com/?p=1630 It’s 2 weeks to Dragon*Con and I’m going a bit insane. As I mentioned in my last post, a group of us are getting ready to launch a comic book at Dragon*Con. As I’ve twittered, there is a fundraiser for cancer research the night before Dragon*Con. What I haven’t mentioned is after a summer hiatus, Astronomy Cast is coming back full force and my non-profit, Astrosphere New Media Association, is launching a store selling all sorts of science goodies. Trying to pull all this stuff together has been, um, challenging. But we’re getting there. And I’m hoping you’ll be there as we bring everything to fruition. Consider this your formal invite to all of the following:

Watch the Stars – Light the Night [buy tickets here]

When: Thursday, September 2, 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Emory Math & Science Center, 400 Dowman Dr., Atlanta, GA 30322
Proceeds to go to Light the Night – the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

Dragon*Con [buy tickets here]

When: Friday, September 3 through Monday, September  6, 2010
Where: Atlanta Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, AND Sheraton
NB I have yet to attend a Dragon*Con where my schedule exactly matched what I got the week before the con, so be prepared for changes!
Don’t forget to check out our fan table in the Hilton! We’ll have T-Shirts for sale!

  • Title: Space Trivia!
    Description: Do you know a lot about space & astronomy? Are you good with trivia? Think you know more than our experts? Here’s where you can test your knowledge!
    Time: Fri 07:00 pm Location: 203 – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)
  • Title: Mystery of Hanny’s Voorwerp
    Description: Who’s Hanny? What’s a Voorwerp? How’s Hubble involved? See the World Release of the webcomic that explains it all & the 1st Hubble images.
    Time: Fri 10:00 pm Location: Crystal Ballroom – Hilton (Length: until we’re done :-) )
  • Title: The 2010 Parsec Awards
    Description: The Parsec Award is available for original Sci-Fi & Fantasy & Speculative Fiction within the new frontiers of Portable Media.
    Time: Sat 04:00 pm Location: Regency V – Hyatt (Length: 2.5 Hours)
  • Title: Astronomy Cast Live!
    Description: Take a facts-based journey through the cosmos with Dr. Pamela Gay and Fraser Cain
    Time: Sun 01:00 pm Location: 204 – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)
  • Title: Skepticism and Education
    Description: JREF now has a Director of Educational Programs – what else is being done out there and how can skeptics help educate the next generation?
    Time: Sun 04:00 pm Location: 207 / 206 / 205 – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)
  • Title: Your Daughter Can Too
    Description: These women have successful careers in engineering & science.  They can tell you how to help your daughters do the same.
    Time: Mon 10:00 am Location: 203 – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)
]]> http://www.starstryder.com/2010/08/23/there-be-dragons-voorwerps/feed/ 1 UStream Feed LIVE! (Public Events) http://www.starstryder.com/2010/01/04/ustream-feed-live-public-events/ http://www.starstryder.com/2010/01/04/ustream-feed-live-public-events/#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:13:29 +0000 pamela http://www.starstryder.com/?p=1264 Video clips at Ustream

Invited Talks are scheduled for following dates and times (pending confirmation with all speakers!). You are invited to attend all events on the Astronomy Cast Public Events UStream Channel. Please feel free to embed this channel on your own webpage!

  • Mon., Jan. 4
    • 8:00 a.m. Van Biesbroeck Prize and Welcoming Address
    • 8:30 p.m. Kepler Planet Detection Mission: Introduction and First Results
    • 11:40 p.m. Russell Lectureship: RR Lyrae Atmospheres: Wrinkles Old and New
    • 3:40 p.m. Pierce Prize: Finding Utility in the Diverse Origins of Gamma-Ray Bursts
    • 4:30 p.m. LeRoy Doggett Prize: History of the Extraterrestrial Life Debate Join us in Second Life [SLURL]
    • 6:30 p.m.  Gemant Prize: Science as Performance Join us in Second Life [SLURL]
  • Tues. Jan. 5
    • 12:30 p.m. Policy Talk: Charles Bolden
    • 3:40 p.m. Warner Prize: The Demographics of Exoplanets
    • 4:30 p.m. Galaxy Clusters and Black Holes: Cooling Versus Heating
  • Wed. Jan. 6
    • 8:30 a.m. Invited Talk: John Grunsfeld, Shuttle Atlantis Join us in Second Life [SLURL]
    • 11:40 a.m. Heinemann Prize: The High-redshift Galaxy Jigsaw Puzzle
    • 3:40 p.m. Cannon Award: A Holistic View of Catastrophic Cosmic Explosions
    • 4:30 p.m. Rossi Prize: Strong Gravity and the Masses of Stellar Black Holes
  • Thurs. Jan. 7
    • 11:40 a.m. Formation of Massive Black Hole Seeds in the First Galaxies
    • 3:40 a.m. Reionization to Near Earth Objects: Scientific Results from the Spitzer Space Telescope
]]> http://www.starstryder.com/2010/01/04/ustream-feed-live-public-events/feed/ 0 And on a personal note at IAU http://www.starstryder.com/2009/08/04/and-on-a-personal-note-at-iau/ http://www.starstryder.com/2009/08/04/and-on-a-personal-note-at-iau/#comments Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:59:57 +0000 pamela http://www.starstryder.com/?p=986 CIMG0115A few random comments:

We just had a brief potential moment of food and drink. People from countries derived from the UK politely attempted to line up (queue), while others, um, did not. A few lucky people got food (including cake!), wine or beer, and even juice or soda by the can. They other 1300 people looked sad. This has been a regular occurrence, with the food and beverages providing only being sufficient for a few hundred (or far far fewer!) people. This is a serious problem that I have thwarted only by being a member of the press. The press room has a constant supply of bottled water.

Anyway – On a more positive note, can I just say it is a blast seeing almost everyone in T-shirts and casual cloths? Kevin Marvel, Pres of the AAS, is in a Hawaiian style shirt. There are all sorts of geek shirts I’ve never seen everywhere. Must ask for websites :-)

My only real, and not fixable unless I walk away from my keyboard, problem is not knowing what the other bloggers/twitters look like in real life! I saw Carolune yesterday, but I keep looking at name badges trying to spot OrbitingFrog, but have so far failed. Oh well, I guess I need to stand up and be social.

The image above comes from the last day of the meeting. A fan of Astronomy Cast who we’d corresponded with before offered to show me some of the city. It was a fabulous adventure.

]]> http://www.starstryder.com/2009/08/04/and-on-a-personal-note-at-iau/feed/ 5 AstroFest 2007 (Texas) http://www.starstryder.com/2007/07/15/astrofest-2007-texas/ http://www.starstryder.com/2007/07/15/astrofest-2007-texas/#comments Mon, 16 Jul 2007 03:20:44 +0000 pamela http://www.starstryder.com/2007/07/15/astrofest-2007-texas/ I’ll be at AstroFest hanging out, meeting students, and giving a talk on standard star calibrations. If you’re an an SAO alum, consider coming :-)

Here’s the info on the talk I’ll be giving:

Standard Stars, Standard Colors, and the art of not being unique
Every set of optics has its own unique set of issues. Some are a little insensitive in the blue, some have something against red. Some filters let through a little more square of a band pass of light, and others let through more sloped a spectral energy distribution. These system to system irregularities mean that a particular star’s instrumental B-V on one scope is not the same as its instrumental B-V on a different telescope. Complicating this are atmospheric differences that cause different amounts of different wavelengths to be transmitted in different locations. For astronomical results between different scopes to be compared, astronomers must be able to transform instrumental magnitudes to a standard system. This is possible using all sky photometry on a photometric night.
In this session we will discuss how to obtain the observations necessary to transform observations to a standard system, as well as how to calculate the the needed transformation coefficients. The session will be divided into two parts, a lecture component and a practical session that will work through provided data.

]]> http://www.starstryder.com/2007/07/15/astrofest-2007-texas/feed/ 1 AAS – Austin, TX http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aas-austin-tx/ http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aas-austin-tx/#comments Mon, 14 May 2007 22:36:55 +0000 pamela http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aas-austin-tx/ I get to go (subject to funding) and be the proud academic parent as at least 1, and possibly 2, of my students present their first papers.

]]> http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aas-austin-tx/feed/ 0 AAVSO 2007 Fall Meeting http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aavso-2007-fall-meeting/ http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aavso-2007-fall-meeting/#comments Mon, 14 May 2007 22:32:17 +0000 pamela http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aavso-2007-fall-meeting/ Still not sure what I’ll be up to, but I plan on being there to enjoy the first meeting in the new building :-)

]]> http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aavso-2007-fall-meeting/feed/ 0 AAPT – Greensboro, NC http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aapt-greensboro-nc/ http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aapt-greensboro-nc/#comments Mon, 14 May 2007 22:28:25 +0000 pamela http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aapt-greensboro-nc/ I’ll be giving a workshop and assisting in a panel discussion at the AAPT Greensboro meeting.

Workshop
Doing Real Science Projects with Small Telescopes
Pamela L. Gay
In this workshop participants will get resources on how they can get involved in real science using off-the-shelf telescopes to tour the skies. Divided into three parts, this workshop will overview current opportunities for professional-amateur-educational astronomy collaborations, and then go into the practical skills needed to do science through both visual observing and CCD observing. Participants will receive CD-ROMs containing practice activities, FAQs, and the basics on getting started. Particular emphasis will be given to variable star observing. Variable stars are part of the current Science Olympiad Division C program, and this workshop will go over the skills needed to understand observing these stars, and contributing data to the International Database of Variable Stars at the American Association of Variable Stars. Methods for observing planetary transits, microlensing events, and minor bodies (for instance asteroids) will also be discussed.

]]> http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aapt-greensboro-nc/feed/ 0 Cosmos in the Classroom 2007 http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/cosmos-in-the-classroom-2007/ http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/cosmos-in-the-classroom-2007/#comments Mon, 14 May 2007 22:17:15 +0000 pamela http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/cosmos-in-the-classroom-2007/ I will be attending the ASP’s Cosmos in the Classroom 2007.
Workshop
Online Education and Intellectual Property Protection Pamela L. GayAs students and textbooks become more wired, instructors are responding by posting content online, providing digital homework, and podcasting classes. With so much intellectual content moving into public Internet spaces, it is increasingly important to consider ways to legally use and legally copyright, trademark and protect online content. In this two-part presentation, participants will look at copyright and trademark issues from the side of both the content user and the content creator. Specific emphasis will be given to the new areas of downloadable audio and video content, and creating families of related materials.In the first part of the workshop, participants will learn about fair use of materials for non-profit / educational purposes, and will explore sites from which art work, audio, and interactive content can be taken freely. Information on effective ways to seek permission to use copy-protected content will also be presented.

The second half of the workshop will address copyright alternatives such as Creative Commons and ways to protect content using Apple’s iTunes U, Blackboard, and WordPress. Tips on creating content that has a unique feel that people consistently attribute to the proper owners (even when material is “borrowed”) will also be discussed.

As part of this workshop, participants will create their own 1-minute podcasts and post them as protected online content.

Poster
Podcasts: The Other Content Meat Pamela L. Gay
In today’s dynamic classroom, students’ learning is no longer confined to lecture content and the words within a (often out of date) textbook. Added to the instructional ingredients list are interactives, real research experiences, and ancillary content in the form of podcasts and videos. In this poster, we present a model for using podcasts to enrich student learning. We will address ways your students can seek their own answers by participating in questions shows with professions, and explore content beyond the scope of the normal classroom such as particle physics and relativity. Teacher tools will also be presented, including ways to use podcasts for evaluation by having students make their own shows by modeling online astronomy shows.

]]> http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/cosmos-in-the-classroom-2007/feed/ 0 EPO and a Changing World http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/epo-and-a-changing-world/ http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/epo-and-a-changing-world/#comments Mon, 14 May 2007 22:11:02 +0000 pamela http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/epo-and-a-changing-world/ I hope to be attending the ASP’s EPO and a Changing World conference in Chicago. My abstracts are in, and now all I need is funding.

Proposed Workshop (Approval Pending)
Your Face(book) and MySpace: Let’s hook up
Pamela L. Gay and Thomas Foster (SIUE)
In the public social network venues of MySpace and Facebook, individuals of all ages and nationalities look for like-minded online denizens with whom they can build relationships. Through social networking sites, it is possible for E/PO programs to bring together diverse individuals to laugh, learn, and socialize around pet projects and favorite topics. Astronomy is popular among these people, with over 5000 members of the MySpace community listing “astronomy” as an interest. By building interesting MySpace and Facebook profiles for your programs, you can plug into the intellectual and social hunger of these individuals.In this workshop, we will discuss the tricks for creating an interesting profile, how to hide such weirdnesses as age and zodiacal sign, and the proper netiquette for nurturing large friends lists and building large communities. Specific emphasis will be given to using Facebook to build one-on-one relationships with program volunteers and students, and how to use MySpace as a way to distribute program announcements to large populations. We will also address the issues of contacting minors, and coping with stalkers and crazies. Come learn how to the people already want to learn and love the cosmos, and are just waiting to hear what you have to share.
Proposed Poster(Approval Pending)
It Takes an e-Village
by Pamela L. Gay, Thomas Foster, Fraser Cain, and Phil Plait
Online discussion groups, such as the popular BAUT Forum, bring together astronomy enthusiasts with amateur and professional astronomers to discuss astronomy news, views, and dreams. Within this digital community, we look to discover if an e-village can raise an astronomer. In this pilot study, we follow 3 individuals as they go from forum newbie to community elder. We examine their posting habits to determine if it is possible to quantify learning within the bulletin board-based forum environment. We specifically document how the difficulty levels of user questions and the patterns of their responses to questions can be used to document growth in knowledge base and confidence in material.In this poster, we put particular emphases on the creation, validation, and evaluation of our interpretive rubric used to track the development of our three users along the previously identified dimensions. In effect, can we create an objective tool to measure learning from participation in an e-village?

The rubric will allow E/PO evaluators to judge the effectiveness of forums in meeting both educational and community needs given limited finances. The rubric will also open up new avenues for educational researchers exploring the impact of internet-based learning tools. This tool is the first step in a broader study to assess learning within the BAUT Forum, the largest online astronomy forum. We strive to achieve a statistical significant sample of life-long learners.

]]> http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/epo-and-a-changing-world/feed/ 0 AAS – Honolulu, Hawaii http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aas-honolulu-hawaii/ http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aas-honolulu-hawaii/#comments Mon, 14 May 2007 20:50:49 +0000 pamela http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aas-honolulu-hawaii/ I’ll be there as a member of the press, and working with folks to organize the 2009 Year of Astronomy.

]]> http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/14/aas-honolulu-hawaii/feed/ 0 The Big Bang and the Universe’s Big Future http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/09/the-big-bang-and-the-universes-big-future/ http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/09/the-big-bang-and-the-universes-big-future/#comments Wed, 09 May 2007 22:54:08 +0000 pamela http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/09/the-big-bang-and-the-universes-big-future/ From September 10-14, I’ll be working with the Davidson Institute’s Young Scholars program to put on an online colloquium titled, “The Big Bang and the Universe’s Big Future.”
Abstract: Astronomers, on a CSI-style mission, have followed the clues to find the culprit behind the formation of the universe. Going by the alias, “Big Bang,” the perpetrator behind the highest energy event ever imagined left behind a series of clues about his identity. In this colloquium, students will study 3 lines of evidence that prove the Big Bang formed the universe. Based on their profile of the “Big Bang,” students will explore what the Universe’s ultimate fate may be.

]]> http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/09/the-big-bang-and-the-universes-big-future/feed/ 0 Webcast for San Mateo AANC-Con http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/09/webcast-for-san-mateo-aanc-con/ http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/09/webcast-for-san-mateo-aanc-con/#comments Wed, 09 May 2007 22:34:58 +0000 pamela http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/09/webcast-for-san-mateo-aanc-con/ Details still being worked out. More to come! Check out the http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/09/an-amazing-and-expanding-universe-in-motion/ Davidson Institute's Young Scholars program to put on an online colloquium titled, "An Amazing and Expanding Universe in Motion."

Abstract: Looking for something entirely different? Take a tour through our ever changing universe that is (loosely) guided by Monty Python's "The Galaxy" song. In this colloquium, students will explore the cosmic history of our planet, how we are evolving and revolving though space, and where we and our galaxy are headed in the future. Basic geometry and algebra will be used to understand the math a physics behind our planet's position in time and space, and to understand why the numbers that apply to England don't apply to Ecuador!

Not familiar with the song? Check out this rated [PG] google video.

]]> From August 7-11, I’ll be working with the Davidson Institute’s Young Scholars program to put on an online colloquium titled, “An Amazing and Expanding Universe in Motion.”

Abstract: Looking for something entirely different? Take a tour through our ever changing universe that is (loosely) guided by Monty Python’s “The Galaxy” song. In this colloquium, students will explore the cosmic history of our planet, how we are evolving and revolving though space, and where we and our galaxy are headed in the future. Basic geometry and algebra will be used to understand the math a physics behind our planet’s position in time and space, and to understand why the numbers that apply to England don’t apply to Ecuador!

Not familiar with the song? Check out this rated [PG] google video.

]]> http://www.starstryder.com/2007/05/09/an-amazing-and-expanding-universe-in-motion/feed/ 0