IAU C55 Communicating
Astronomy with the Public
Report for CAP2010
Cape Town
March 15th – 19th 2010
Ian Robson
C55 structure from 2006-2009
 President – Ian Robson (UK)
 VP – Dennis Crabtree (Canada)
 Secretary - Lars Lindberg Christensen (Denmark)
 Organising Committee
Oscar Alvarez Pomares; Augusto Damineli Neto; Richard
Fienberg; Anne Green; Ajit Kembhavi; Birgitta
Nordstrom; Kazuhiro Sekiguchi; Patricia Whitelock; Jin
Zhu
 www.communicatingastronomy.org
Progress: 2006-2009
Working Groups:
 Washington Charter - Chair Dennis Crabtree (Canada)
 Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project - Chair Adrienne J.
Gauthier (USA)
 Best Practices – Chair Lars Lindberg Christensen
(Denmark)
 Communicating Astronomy Journal – Chair Pedro Russo
(Portugal)
 New Ways of Communicating Astronomy with the Public
- Chair Michael West (USA)
 CAP Conferences - Chair Ian Robson (UK)
Progress: 2006-2009
 Much of the work
has, not surprisingly,
been strongly
focused on IYA2009
(inc EX WG) and this
has limited the work
that has been able to
be achieved across
the entire portfolio. I
think we can say that
this effort has been
extremely successful
as we’ll see this
week
Progress: 2006-2009
The IYA2009 focus has been hugely
beneficial in promoting C55 ideas in the
areas of New Media and the VAMP work.
Also, we have seen major benefits in ways
that were not envisaged in the Working
Groups – such as the Galileoscope and
FETTU to name but two.
Washington Charter
Progress has been limited due to effort
availability but the current picture is that it
has been endorsed by:
19 professional astronomical societies or
agencies
12 universities, labs, facilities and other
organisations
Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project
 Spectacular progress has been made on this project,
lots of agreement on metadata and tools, culminating
in the launch of ‘Portal to the Universe’ at the
NAM/JENAM meeting in the UK in April 2009 and
sponsored by the IAU and ESO
 Portal to the Universe is a global, one-stop
clearinghouse for online astronomy content, with
news, blogs, video and audio podcasts, images,
videos targeting the complete range from laypeople,
press, educators, to scientists
 During the first three months of operation it
aggregated 3,000 press releases; 1,500+ podcast
episodes; 11,000+ blog posts and received more than
130,000 visitors.
Best Practices
This project has also suffered due to the
IYA2009 activities but some of the aims
have been incorporated into the IYA
activities and instructions for organisers
and evaluation.
Communicating Astronomy Journal
 Another spectacular success story
 Initial meetings and discussions with the
Astronomy Educational Review amongst
others – launched in October 2007
 It has a formal organisational structure and
editorial board and provides a refereeing
process for submitted papers.
 Six editions published by summer 2009, over
60 articles with 1,500 hard-copy subscribers,
2,700 on-line subscribers
 ESO supporting editorial and shipping costs
www.capjournal.org
New Ways of Communicating
Astronomy with the Public
 This work has also taken off, albeit through a life
of it’s own rather than through the Group – and
led by a small number of devoted ‘geeks/gurus’.
 As well as blogging and podcasts, recently
Twitter has appeared on the scene alongside
Facebook and Second Life. In other areas key
examples such as Galaxy Zoo show how this is
a vibrant way forward for the future, especially
for the younger generation of producers and
communicators
CAP Conferences
 There has been one CAP conference since
Prague, CAP2007 in October 2007 in Athens.
 It was co-organized by the National Observatory
of Athens and the Eugenides Planetarium
 This was a tremendous success, with over 200
participants – much of the focus was on looking
forward to IYA2009
 The Proceedings were published in book format
as well as on-line.
 CAP2010 is alive and well and here we are in
Cape Town, in March 2010
 CAP2011 – Watch this space
C55 structure for the next 3 years
President - Dennis Crabtree (Canada)
VP – Lars Lindberg Christensen (Denmark)
Secretary – Pedro Russo (Portugal)
Organising Committee
Anja Anderson; Oscar Alvarez Pomares;
Augusto Damineli Neto; Richard Fienberg; Anne
Green; Ajit Kembhavi; Ian Robson; Kazuhiro
Sekiguchi; Patricia Whitelock; Jin Zhu
Proposed working groups for the
next 3 years
 Washington Charter - Chair Dennis Crabtree
(Canada)
 Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project - Chair
Robert Hurt (USA)
 Best Practices – group wound up
 Communicating Astronomy Journal – Chair Pedro
Russo (Portugal)
 New Ways of Communicating Astronomy with the
Public – renamed ‘New Media’ with Pamela Gay as
Chair and Lars Lindberg Christensen as Co-Chair.
 CAP Conferences - Chair Ian Robson (UK)
 ProAm collaboration – Chairs and membership
TBD
Work needed
Update the web once we complete CAP2010
Washington Charter – must progress, we
need supporters who can influence their
‘local’ agencies etc. Need to focus on
individual departments/groups as endorsers
VAMP – formalise the supporters of this
group as huge activity going on and this will
be a key area for the future of CAP – so
much to do in this topic, supporters sought.
Work needed
 Portal to the Universe – can it become a one-stop
image repository ? Is it further expandable ?
 CAPJournal – needs sponsorship for the printing
costs
 Need more supporters (workers) for all the WGs
 What do we retain (nationally/globally) post
IYA2009 ?