News

GTTP / EU-HOU part of IAU strategic plan 2010-2020

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has lauched in 2009 the Galileo Teacher Training Program (GTTP), a Cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. Global-HOU is a major component of GTTP.

Global-HOU, among which EU-HOU is the leading consortium, is now officially included in the Astronomy for the Developing World Strategic Plan 2010-20 of IAU, under Section 3.4.2 Astronomy for Children and Schools. During the next decade the IAU will concentrate more resources on education activities for children and schools designed to advance sustainable global development.

2nd successful COMENIUS-funded Teacher Training Session - Cardiff, UK

The second COMENIUS-funded EU-HOU training session was held in Cardiff, UK this August, hosted by the UK partners, the Faulkes Telescope Project and was a huge success for all attendees.

Direct webcast of the Solar eclipse July 22nd !!!

As we all know, the Solar eclipse on July 22nd will not be visible from Europe. However, various sites will broadcast it directly from Chongquing Observatory in China, where it will be visible from 2 am to 5 am UT+2, July 22nd.

Silver European award for the project « Hands-On Universe »

The project « Hands-On Universe, Europe – Bringing frontline interactive astronomy to the classroom » has been honoured with the silver award of the European Commission at the occasion of the conference « Innovation and Creativity in the Lifelong Learning Programme: Create, Innovate and Cooperate » held in Prague, 6-7 May 2009, in the framework of the Czech Presidency of the European Union.

1st COMENIUS success story: OHP training session, May 7-10 th, 2009

35 participants have joined for our workshop in Observatoire de Haute-Provence, a beautiful place located South of France. This training session took place while the very first International Year of Astronomy occurs in 2009, proclaimed by the United Nations on Dec. 20th 2007, following UNESCO resolution 33 C/25:

Teachers invited to training session in Cardiff (UK)

In the course of the COMENIUS project, the 2nd European teacher training session will take place in UK, in the city of Cardiff, Faulkes Telescope Operations Centre.

Life cycle of stars - Plotting your own HR diagram!

New exercise: Explore the star population inside an open cluster!

In this project you will be shown how to use Faulkes Telescope data to measure the intensity of light from the stars in a cluster (a process known as photometry), through different filters, and plot the colours of the stars on a 'colour-magnitude diagram'. Once a measure of how “red” or “blue” the stars are is made, more informtion about them can be obtained– massive stars are usually very blue (hot), intermediate mass stars (like the Sun) are yellow, and the very lowest mass stars are red (cool).

Try it!

ESA competition for secondary students

Be an INTEGRAL astronomer - competition. Deadline: 14 August 2009

To celebrate the International Year of Astronomy, and as part of the 100 Hours of Astronomy cornerstone project, the European Space Agency is running a competition.

Using data from the INTEGRAL mission students must complete four tasks to be in with a chance to win a trip to the European Space Astronomy Centre in Spain plus a number of other great prizes.