Astro Payyanur

If you have a telescope, mark April 2–5, 2009, on your calendar. The world is coming your way.

An unprecedented string of public skywatching events will be packed into this brief period, all designed to engage people and bring them out for a worldwide star party that will cap the program on Saturday evening, April 4th.

Collectively, the period is called “100 Hours of Astronomy.” It’s a Cornerstone Project of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, tailor-made for amateurs who’d like to try some outreach. During the final 24 hours a global star party will sweep around the world, with local gatherings beginning as darkness descends. Even city street corners will come alive, with the third annual International Sidewalk Astronomy Night happening the first weekend in April. Thus many sidewalk astronomy regulars will already be at their stations.

100 hours of Astronomy is a 100-hour (from the 2nd to the 5th of April 2009), round-the-clock, round-the-globe event inside the International Year of Astronomy.



It consists of a wide range of public outreach activities, live science center, research observatory webcasts and sidewalk astronomy events. Events are mainly focused on the wonders of the starry night, but there are also events all around the world to observe the crescent Moon for early observer, and of course daytime observations of the Sun.

This Solar TG collaborates with 100 Hours, supporting any activity related to the Sun, and providing instructions, ideas and recommendations for safe solar observations.

And Sunday might perfectly be the best day for a solar event. Star parties on Sunday are difficult since everyone has to get up early for school or work. Let´s enjoy the Sunday, when everyone has free time and kids and adults can all enjoy the near but forgotten Sun and its wonders. Either get up early to start with a nice sunrise, go for a walk on the afternoon or enjoy a wonderful sunset. On the meantime you can participate on a 100 hours solar event. Ask your local astronomy center for more information. If you are an astronomy center, let´s organize one event!. There is no need to restrict it to the Sun, you can event start at sunset and continue with some star gazing…

Let the last day of 100 Hours be the Sun day, not just a Sunday.

For that reason, this page, and on the 100 hours website, we will be encouraging and helping everyone to organize their solar events this day. Here you can find, ideas, resources, experiments. Leave us our comments or ask us any question you might have.
Create your event! The perfect venue is outside, sunshine permitting.

* Always when observing the Sun, follow and educate everyone with safety instructions.
* Set up a telescope with a Solar filter, withe white light of H-Alpha.
* Create a pinhole camera to image the Sun, or better make a workshop to build your own pinhole camera.
* Talk, talk, talk. There are many many topics to talk about our Sun. Speaking about any of them, keeping the live shining reference above us, greatly helps to put closer the wonders and distant worlds of Astronomy. See below for a tentative lists of topics.
* There are many experiments to carry on, like
Measuring the Sun size, and others.
* Make a solar system play with kids (to talk about distances, speeds, sizes, space missions, …
* Construct an spectrometer with a CD.
* Show the photoelectric effect, use sun panels, talk about Solar energy.
* Make coordinated pairs of observations around the world to measure the Sun-Earth distance, or the Earth radius.

Take a look on our resources sections, there you can find links th more activities and experiments, as well as links with even more activities.

Indoors or outdoors, a thematic talk can be a very instructive idea. You can decide to do it just with your voice, or use media materials, like photos or videos (see below for references)
Thematics ( Brainstorming )

* Scales of the Sun, its dimensions, distances, inner parts, …
* Safety and the Sun. Observing the Sun, UV light, …
* Living on the Sun´s atmosphere, influences and safety and dangers due to the heliosphere.
* Space Weather: How the Sun can greatly influence the Earth. Magnetic storms, effects on technology, past solar maxima, dangers and protecting of the Earth´s magnetosphere.
* Current research efforts, satellites observing and serving live image of the Sun from many viewpoints.
* Current biggest misteries of the Sun, like the coronal heat.
* Use the Sun to talk about the life of a star.
* Talk about anecdotes related to the Sun, like the Carringtongs flare, the nuclear false positive, the little-ice age, Vancouver black out, telegraphy on the Sun batteries, proof of Einstein theories during an eclipse, the discovery of the Helium, …
* The Sun in history (from nature, life, to mythology, astrology, … )
* What if? cases: How would humans look like, or exists, if the Sun, were a bit bigger, closer, fainter, more active, calm, emitting more in X-rays or infrareds than on “Visible”, had a companion, Jupiter as a Sun…
* The brother Sun: The Sun and us, we all come from the same dust of a previous father Star.
* Ask an astronomer: Open tables to talk about the skies

Play some on the zillion on movies or documentals about the Sun, eclipses, …
Show the Live view from the Sun, like from Stereo, Hinode, Soho. Use videos of the Sun (Best of Soho, Hinode, Stereo, Trace), from the National Geographic, … (take a look to the resources pages for more links or send us your links!)
Ask your planetarium or science museum to prepare an astronomical event on that day.

On Friday Jan 30, 09 we are presented with a nice opportunity to catch Venus in broad day light.

On this day the Moon and Venus would be rising almost together. At about 10:00 a.m. if the sky is clear it should not be difficult to see the brightening lunar crescent well above the eastern horizon. Venus would be about two and quarter degrees south of the Moon. If one uses a small pair of binoculars one should be able to see these in the same field of view.

The best opportunity, however, comes when they will be crossing the meridian, an imaginary arc that passes through the north pole, the point right overhead and then the south pole. Close to the time is crosses the meridian (called transit time) time face due south and look strait up and then bend your neck down slightly southwards. You should be able to spot the Moon and then continue further down a bit and you can spot Venus.

Venus Rise, Transit and set times (in IST) for some cities in India are

rise transit set
Chennai 9h 01m 15h 12m 21h 26m
Bangalore 9h 25m 15h 27m 21h 28m
Jaipur 9h 32m 15h 34m 21h 36m
Kolkata 8h 42m 14h 44m 20h 46m
Mumbai 9h 44m 15h 46m 21h 47m
New Delhi 9h 26m 15h 28m 21h 30m
Pune 9h 39m 15h 41m 21h 43m


If you missed the event, never mind. Wait till it gets dark. It would be a magnificent view of the Moon and Venus next to each other above the western horizon.

Launch Conference of the International Year of Astronomy
UNESCO, Paris, France, January 15-16 2009

2009 has been declared International Year of Astronomy by the General Assembly of the UN (United Nations Organization).

The Opening ceremony of the International Year of Astronomy will take place in Paris, January 15-16, 2009, under the aegis of the UN, the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), the IAU (International Astronomical Union). It is also supported by a number of sponsors including French and international organizations and institutions .

About 600 participants are expected, among them eminent scientists (including Nobel Prize winners), and also about 200 young students from over 100 countries, participating to the International Year IYA2009. Attendance is on invitation only.

IYA2009 marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first astronomical observation through a telescope. It is nothing short of a worldwide celebration, promoting astronomy and its contribution to society and culture, with events at regional, national, and global levels.

The IAU is the international astronomical organisation that brings together almost 10 000 distinguished astronomers from all nations of the world. Its mission is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation. The IAU also serves as the internationally recognised authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and surface features on them. Founded in 1919, the IAU is the world's largest professional body for astronomers.

In 2009 we celebrate 400 years of Galileo's observations, the background theme for the International Year of Astronomy 2009.

One of Galileo's study objects was our star - the Sun, where he observed one of the first know types of solar activity - Sunspots. 400 years have past since Galileo's observations, but there are still a large number of people around the world that think the Sun is just a bright perfect yellow ball.

And this is where you come in!

"Dawn of the IYA2009" is a global, Sun observation campaign, proposed by Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto (CAUP) and the IYA2009's Solar Physics Group (SPG), which seeks not only to be the global teaser for the IYA2009 (a first calling card), but also to show to a larger, global public, what our star is all about.

For this activity we propose that, starting at local noon, 1st of January 2009, everyone with means to (safely) observe the Sun, gather outside science centers, town halls, shopping centers or simply your own street, and present the Sun and the IYA2009 to the world.

We call all professional and hobby astronomers to participate in what will be the largest Sun observation event in the world. Whether you have a telescope with a solar filter, an H-alpha telescope, a sunspotter or a simple pinhole projection system, you are the one we need.

All registered participants will download a set of instructions on how to safely observe the Sun, a IYA2009 logo to place on their equipment and/or a small poster presenting the IYA2009, which should be present during the activity.