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Here are some pictures taken from our skypecasting studio. There were four of us but one was taking the pictures so we are not all present on each of them. We had three computers, two laptops, a few cameras and a few webcams, many headsets and a very friendly security guard allowing us to run in and out incessantly to check out the moon.
Click on the photos to see larger pictures.
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On March 3, 2007 a group of young astronomers got together for what seems to be the first Astronomical Skypecast ever. The event was aimed at connecting kids across the world to watch the spectacular lunar eclipse of March 3-4. Schools and Learners from primarily South Africa and Germany took part in the Skypecast, but it was also open to the public and many others of all ages joined in. The response was global and demonstrated that the passion with which people enjoy astronomical events is the same in all parts of the world.
The eclipse was observed from all inhabited continents. Observations were shared and compared, weather conditions, time zones and seasons were described. The Eclipse website was updated live from the studio in Garching. Participants sent pictures to be posted during the event and a question and answer session took place during a four-and-a-half-hour long show.
The four members of the skypecasting studio were Douglas Pierce-Price, Education officer at ESO, Maggie Aderin from Science Innovation in the UK, Kevin Govender from SAAO and Carolina …dman from Universe Awareness. They were installed in the Council Room of ESO Headquarters in Garching, Germany. The show began at 10pm local time and ran until 2.30 the following morning.
In South Africa, astronomers and staff from SAAO volunteered to go to three boarding schools where they set up telescopes, gave presentations about the eclipse before joining in the Skypecast. The South African astronomers were Kechil Kirkham, Nicola Loaring, Rupert Spann and Jaci Dyers.
In Göttingen, Germany, school pupils joined in as well. The event was organised at too short notice for the school to set up an event so the kids joined in by connecting from their homes. The coordinator of the Göttingen leg of the exchange was Eckart Modrow, a science and IT teacher at the school.
The even was open to the public and a parallel public chat room was opened, also on Skype.
Spontaneous participation
People from at least the countries below joined the chat:
South Africa, Germany, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, United States, Slovakia, Morocco, Brazil, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Portugal, Belgium.
We estimate the number of different participants to have reached about 60 and the Skypcast chair had to manage up to 17 people at one. The youngest participants were 7 years old. People showed a very proactive attitude, not only in the German and South African groups but also the spontaneous participants. Often the chair could relax and let people talk to each other without any intervention.
Lessons learned
In certain areas the broadband connection was not quite up to the requirements of live skypecasting. Most often they could listen in but had difficulties talking. This was alleviated with the parallel chat room where people could send in their questions and they were answered live on the Skypecast.
It went outstandingly well but the need to closely chair and monitor the chat was very demanding. Some more technical support would have been very welcome. Owing to the bad weather people had plenty of general astronomy and space questions. The astronomers worked hard to answer all of them understandably. It was a difficult but ultimately very successful popularisation exercise.
Good news
In general the feedback was excellent. No undesirable people disrupted the conversation. The chat room continued for over an hour after the organisers had quit the show. It was remarkable that such an even could be organised at such short notice and given the abundance of interesting astronomical events this kind of experiment will probably become fairly common in the near future.
Conclusion
Skypecasting is a novel and outstanding instrument for astronomical outreach. It involves the participants actively and allows for spontaneous reactions and participations from across the globe. Unlike its cousin Podcasting, Skypecasting is interactive and that opens the door to a whole new dimension in outreach.
However new this was on March 3, 2007, this technology will be mainstream by 2009, the International Year of Astronomy and we expect this sort of event to happen regularly in the future.
Thanks to Douglas Pierce-Price and the staff at ESO for allowing this to happen!
Note: For more information on the South African participation, see this page. For more information on the German participation, see this page.
Contact details: Click on the names to send them email.
Kevin Govender
Carolina Ödman
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