Dear Fellow Communicators,
We have two exciting pieces of news for you this month!
The first is an opportunity to attract visitors to your venue if you work for a public observatory, planetarium, museum, science centre or the like. On 19 June 2014 a historic event will take place — blasting away the top of Cerro Armazones, the 3000-metre peak that will be the home of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). To enable people from around the world to witness this exciting milestone first-hand, we will webcast a live video stream of the event on Livestream and via YouTube, from 17:00 UTC until around 19:00 UTC.
We invite you to take advantage of this opportunity by organising a local event that will attract people to your venue, while offering them the chance to witness the blasting. The logistics of a basic event are minimal: a good internet connection, a screen to project the streaming and a venue with sufficient space. For help in announcing the event in the local media, you can get in touch with your local ESO Science Outreach Network (ESON) representative. Participants can also follow live tweets from @ESO under the hashtag #EELTblast and ask questions in English that we will try to answer in as close to real time as possible.
You are also encouraged to keep us informed about any event you are planning by sending an email to osandu@partner.eso.org so that we can promote it through ESO’s communication channels.
The second piece of news is connected to a pool of stunning resources that we have just released. Following the ESO Ultra HD expedition, we have enriched our online archive with 300 GB of online Ultra HD material:
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For the media and others:
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For use by broadcasters, highlights of the expedition are collected in five UHD compilations featuring:
Next month we will make a special release for planetarium use. Stay tuned!
You are free to use this material, provided that it is properly credited as all our footage is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. We hope that these UltraHD resources will help to create a lasting impression on your visitors, transporting them to the fascinating sites of Chile, where our observatories are based.
In addition to these opportunities, we have several other highlights we would like to draw to your attention:
- The International Astronomical Union has a new website! If you have not had the chance to see it, you can access it here. Stay tuned as more news will follow regarding the IAU communication policy.
- Due to large customs and tax levies, even on free educational materials, we have decided that we can no longer support free orders outside ESON countries. We are extremely saddened by this, but a lot of our material has been destroyed as educators could not afford to pay the necessary taxes to release it from customs.
- We welcome Sergio Otarola as an ESO Photo Ambassador! Born in 1979 in Viña del Mar, Chile, Sergio is a former avionics technician from the Chilean Air Force, currently working as Electronics Technician at the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) Observatory. Read more about him here.
- We have a new Hubble book available, The Universe through the Eyes of Hubble, both in English and German.
- Don’t miss the two astrophotography competitions we are currently supporting — AstroCamera 2014, where we are offering several awards for the honourable mentions; the first prizes consist of money given by the organisers and the Photo Nightscapes Awards 2014, where we are offering the first prize in the Pro category, a trip to Paranal, Chile.
Let’s reach new heights in astronomy together,
Lars Lindberg Christensen (lars@eso.org)
Head, ESO education and Public Outreach Department (ePOD)
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12 May 2014: ESO invites you to take part in AstroCamera 2014 — an international competition in support of the popularisation of astronomy and astrophotography. As an honorary sponsor of the competition organised by ...
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9 May 2014: The ESO Ultra HD Expedition may now be over, but there is much work being done behind-the-scenes to process and combine all the footage the team has taken — a staggering ...
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28 April 2014: To enhance their programmes of scientific cooperation with the host country, ESO provides and manages an annual fund for the development of astronomy and technology related disciplines in Chile. The ...
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25 April 2014: The latest issue of the free magazine Science in School is now available online and in print. This European journal for science teachers offers inspiring articles, fun games and hands-on ...
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16 April 2014: Thanks to a new app developed in partnership with the Polish company Bridge, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) will appear in 3D before your eyes by using your ...
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15 April 2014: ESO’s Paranal–Armazones site in Chile has been shortlisted as one of two potential sites in the southern hemisphere for the international Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) — a large array ...
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11 April 2014: Astronomy enthusiasts across the world can now enjoy the best ESO images and news from the Universe on their Samsung Smart TV devices. The company launched the application AstroImages in ...
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