Tweeting shooting stars (Forwarded)

Royal Astronomical Society Press Information Notice

Issued by
Dr Robert Massey
Press and Policy Officer
Royal Astronomical Society
Burlington House
Piccadilly
London W1J 0BQ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7734 3307
CONTACTS

Richard Fleet
Newbury Astronomical Society
Tel: +44 (0)1672 563859 (evenings)

Steve Owens
UK Co-ordinator, IYA2009
c/o Glasgow Science Centre
50 Pacific Quay
Glasgow G51 1EA
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)141 420 5010 x 299

For immediate release: 10th August 2009

RAS PN 09/50

TWEETING SHOOTING STARS

Amateur astronomers across the UK are preparing to tweet the world's first
mass participation meteor star party, as part of the International Year of
Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009). Led by Newbury Astronomical Society, the Twitter
Meteorwatch will take place from the evening of Tuesday 11th until the
morning of 13th August 2009, covering the peak of the Perseids meteor
shower.

Meteors (popularly known as 'shooting stars') are the visible streaks of
light that result from the disintegration of small particles entering the
Earth's atmosphere at high speed. In this case the material comes from the
tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle, which last passed near the Earth in 1992. The
resulting meteors appear to originate from a 'radiant' in the constellation
of Perseus and so are named Perseids.

During the peak of the shower between fifty and eighty shooting stars may be
visible each hour from a dark sky site. The Newbury astronomers will lead a
global network of amateur stargazers who will be live-tweeting images of the
meteors as well as twitpics of the Moon, Jupiter and a host of nebulae,
galaxies and other astronomical objects.

With UK amateur astronomy societies and astronomers around the world taking
part, the Twitter Meteorwatch should reach tens of thousands of people.
Richard Fleet, President of Newbury Astronomical Society is delighted that
so many people are involved. "The Perseids can be spectacular and are one of
the highlights of the astronomical calendar. Join in our Meteorwatch and you
can enjoy one of the most beautiful sights in the sky for yourself."

Steve Owens, the UK Co-ordinator of IYA2009 adds: "IYA2009 is all about
getting people to look up and ask questions about the night sky. With so
many astronomers taking part in the Twitter Meteorwatch there will always be
something to see and someone to answer your questions. It's great that the
Newbury Astronomical Society is using a social networking tool like Twitter
to bring astronomy to the general public."

The Twitter Meteorwatch follows on from a Twitter Moonwatch that Newbury
Astronomical Society ran in May this year, during which thousands of people
saw images of the Moon, tweeted questions to expert astronomers, and chatted
online about astronomy.

Richard Fleet now sees Twitter as an ideal way to popularise astronomy. "We
realised early on that what people want are images of the night sky, so we
used our array of telescopes and cameras to provide a constant stream of
pictures which we uploaded straight to Twitter. We were amazed at how
excited people were about our Twitter Moonwatch; we had thousands of people
who had probably never looked through a telescope before asking us questions
directly and viewing images."

FURTHER INFORMATION

To take part in the Twitter Moonwatch, just follow @NewburyAS and
@astronomy209uk on http://twitter.com and search for the term #meteorwatch .

Newbury Astronomical Society: Perseids
http://newburyas.wordpress.com/2009/...r-meteorwatch/

IYA2009: UK home page
http://www.astronomy2009.co.uk

NOTES FOR EDITORS

THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF ASTRONOMY 2009 (IYA 2009)

The International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA 2009) is a global celebration
of astronomy and its contributions to society and culture. It is intended to
stimulate worldwide interest not only in astronomy, but in science in
general, with a particular slant towards young people. IYA 2009 marks the
400th anniversary of the monumental leap forward that followed Galileo
Galilei's first use of the telescope for astronomical observations. In the
UK the chair of IYA2009 is Professor Ian Robson, director of the UK
Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh, and the co-ordinator for IYA 2009
activities is Steve Owens, also a UKATC employee. UK IYA 2009 activities are
jointly funded by the Royal Astronomical Society (www.ras.org.uk), the
Institute of Physics (www.iop.org) and the Science and Technology Facilities
Council (www.stfc.ac.uk).

IYA 2009: UK home page
http://www.astronomy2009.co.uk

THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), founded in 1820, encourages and
promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and
closely related branches of science. The RAS organizes scientific meetings,
publishes international research and review journals, recognizes outstanding
achievements by the award of medals and prizes, maintains an extensive
library, supports education through grants and outreach activities and
represents UK astronomy nationally and internationally. Its more than 3000
members (Fellows), a third based overseas, include scientific researchers in
universities, observatories and laboratories as well as historians of
astronomy and others.