Astro-drinking in St. Louis

I’ve been informed that there will be some serious astronomy blogger congregation in St. Louis, MO. Phil “Bad Astrology” Plait will be there along with Pamela Gay and some other people I haven’t met but are soon to be my friends for life. Like you!

So limber up your pint lifting arm and c’mon down to the KitchenK Restaurant at 7pm on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008.

Carnival of Space No. 56

Slacker Astronomy has been delinquent in promoting the Carnival of Space. I’ve always been a little wary of the word “space”. It’s a really odd and not that useful word to explain the universe beyond our little planet here. But people use the word “space” and we all know what they mean so I’ll swallow my objections.

So go visit the the 56th Carnival of Space! Maybe the Slackers can host it one of these days…

Podcast: Ice Cube Neutrino Observatory

We have a new podcast on the feed. Doug and I discuss the Ice Cube Neutrino Observatory, supernovae light echos and buying a star. Check out the show notes for more details.

Ice Cube (MP3, 23.4MB, 25:27)

Slackerpedia Galactica Update

Slackerpedes,

I upgraded the wiki software that runs Slackerpedia Galactica. Everything seems to be working OK. We had problems before where people couldn’t register as new users. I just tested that and it seems to work fine. Let me know if you have a different experience.

Let me say, the Slackerpedia Galactica astronomy wiki is really cool! It’s entertaining and informative and I don’t know of anything else like it. So please, take another look, add some articles, edit some articles and have some fun.

We also have a very simple Slackerpedia Galactica Facebook app.

Let’s bring it back to life. C’mon, everyone, follow me!

Support an old friend

Hey, all. Please forgive me for this non-astronomy interlude. Our old friend (and Slacker Astronomy cofounder) Travis Searle has some exciting news and needs your help. His band is going to be on a local Boston reality/talent show and he needs your vote. Travis is the vocalist/keyboardist. Even if you don’t watch the video, please take a moment to vote for him. This is like Chicago: vote early, vote often!
————————————————————————————————
Hi All,

A Friendly Reminder: Spyside, the rock-duo featuring Ken Gardiner and Travis Searle (http://www.myspace.com/spysideband), appears this weekend on the television talent showcase “Community Auditions: Star of the Day” - http://www.communityauditions.com.

You have a few chances to watch, depending on where you are. For those not in the Boston/Providence/Portland area, we’re told that clips of individual performances will be available online at the Community Auditions website. (See URL above.)

FRIDAY MAY 16th -
9:30pm on TV38 WSBK Boston

SATURDAY MAY 17th -
10:30pm on WPXT The CW Portland, Maine
Midnight on WBZ-TV CBS Boston

SUNDAY MAY 18th -
Noon on TV38 WSBK Boston
7:30pm on NECN Boston Area

VOTE FOR US.
Voting is active from Friday after the episode premiers and lasts until airs to the following Friday morning, May 23rd. Votes count toward being included in the final episodes, where contestants compete for a car and a professionally produced record. **Everyone should vote as much as they can all week. Seriously. There’s no limit to how often or how many times you can vote, whether you saw the show or not.** Plus, voting is easy! You can do it in your spare time! Again, the website is:http://www.communityauditions.com/.

Feel free to pass this news on to any and all who might be interested. Thanks for the support!

–
TS/KG

Podcast: Light Pollution

Special Correspondent Julie Wilbert brings us a podcast report on light pollution with members of the Minnesota Astronomical Society.

Light Pollution (MP3, 17.2MB, 18:40)

Subscribe!

Astronomy Blog reminds us: Don’t name a star

Stuart over at Astronomy Blog tackles and tackles again the reasons why you should not pay to “name a star” for yourself or a loved one. While it can be heartfelt to want to memorialize someone by naming a star, you can do that without sending a check to shady unofficial organizations.

Hell, just email us and we’ll help you pick out a great star. You want something hot? Massive? With or without a companion? Would you like an accretion disk with that? Or some planets perhaps?

Go ahead, name a star. Just don’t pay for it.

Amateur Astronomers from KQED

Here is a nice video from the KQED QUEST Science Video Podcast called Amateur Astronomers. It features John Dobson, Timothy Ferris and many others. Looks like a pretty cool podcast in general.