Papers About You

Last fall and winter (northern hemisphere!) we posted online a number of surveys and heavily promoted them in the show. The goal of these surveys was to write two semi-formal papers about Slacker Astronomy and podcasting for the electronic journal Astronomy Education Review.

Initial results were presented in this poster paper at the American Astronomical Society meeting in January, 2006.

In January and February, 2006 the papers were submitted for review. After some iterations they were approved by the referee’s and were published online May 30, 2006.

Click here to read the papers.

Feel free to ask us any questions that come to you while reading the papers. And thank you so much for helping us with this assessment!

Running Backwards (show #54)

Show Notes:

• Transcript
• Univ. Rochester Press Release
• PhyOrg article - This has some really cool animations and explainations of how it works.

  Really cool graphics based on Data:

  Backward light pulse propagation
  
  

SA Extra: Our Morning Story Ages Like a Fine Wine

(I’ve always wanted to use extraordinaire in a real sentence, and I’ve finally succeeded! Mark one more thing off the to-do-before-I-die list.)

In April, 2005 we visited WGBH’s studios in Boston and recorded a joint show with Tony Kahn of the Morning Stories podcast. The idea was that we’d just chat for a bit and each of us would record and edit the material as we see fit, but put it online at the same time. Things got a bit busy…. okay VERY busy… but finally the long lost material sees the light of day.

On May 19th, WGBH’s podcast Morning Stories (the first public radio podcast) released an episode about various science topics and they included a snippet of the chat in the show. So now we are putting online our version - which is a complete recording of the 1 hour and 5 minute chit chat. Check it out! But remember that we were still only about 2 months old at the time - so a bit raw and unpolished.

Don’t forget to susbcribe to Tony’s Morning Stories podcast either. When Aaron first got the idea for Slacker Astronomy, he downloaded ipodder and the first podcast he subscribed to was Morning Stories so it has a special place his my heart. You never forget your first!

• Direct link to the Morning Stories show MP3 (after the segment about the 17 year cecada)
• Morning Stories Main Page

Aaron, Pamela, Travis, Tony Kahn, & Gary Mott in the studio.

Travis and Pamela being bathed in an eerie blue light. They are now sterile and we plan to sue.

Why Space Telescopes Need a Union (Show #53)

Castdate: 060516
Title: Why Space Telescopes Need a Union
Written By: Aaron
Disembodied Voices: Pamela & Travis & assorted protesters
Engineered: Travis
Rating: [OF] Office Friendly

• Transcript
• First views of monstrous stars being born Spaceflightnow.com
• Article via physorg.org
• ISOPHOT home page
• First data from the ISOPHOT FIR Serendipity Survey - their first paper

ISO’s slew map:

Black Holes Suck Down Awards

SA Extra: Interview With Lars Lindberg Christensen

• Personal Web Page Check out his wonderful photos!
• European Space Agency
• Spacetelescope.org
• FITS Liberator - use Photoshop to analyse HST images
• International Virtual Observatory Alliance
• Tycho Brahe Planetarium

Lars is the Head of Communications for the Hubble Space Telescope and the James E. Webb Space Telescope. He is responsible for many of the press releases and imagery which we’ve covered in this show. Before that he was head of a planetarium in Copenhagen for ten years. This is the last of our interviews from the 207th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

One Less Thing To Worry About (Show #52)

Castdate: 060509
Title: One Less Thing To Worry About
Written By: Aaron
Disembodied Voices: Pamela & Travis
Engineered: Travis
Rating: [OF] Office Friendly

• Transcript
• Article via PhysicsWeb.org
• The paper by Stanek et al.
• Stars rich in heavy metals tend to harbor planets - Berkeley news release
• Nature.com discussion of Population I, II and III stars (and their metallicity)
• Mass Extinction Events Wikipedia
• Original discovery image of the Yucatan crater

Sorry for the week off. All three slackers were busy at a meeting last week.