Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2007 (CAP2007) was held in Athens from Oct 8th through 11th. It was incredibly productive and the UK was very well represented. Find out what happened and see how this feeds into IYA2009

All the presentations were excellent and many excellent ideas were forthcoming. It also turns out that the UK has the second highest hit-list on its web-page - the USA is top, so keep them hits coming! Catherine Cesarsky (IAU President) was extremely pleased with the conference as it aptly demonstrated what a vibrant and enthusiastic community of astronomy outreach activists exists. A UNESCO executive member was present and she was also very impressed with all the work going on, especially those close to UNESCO's heart - such as ‘UNAWE’ and ‘Hands on Universe’. As ever, fundraising was seen as a concern everywhere.

IYA2009 Sessions and Discussion Meetings

SPoC Meetings - two meetings were held (Sunday evening and Wednesday afternoon), and both were very successful. Over 30 SPoCs attended and the key issues discussed were:

1. UN resolution. Enikö Patkos (ESO) reported about the lobbying progress and it looks
like everything is on track for UN endorsement by the end of the year – we should
expect a notification in early December.
2. Opening Events: The official Opening Ceremony will be in Paris at UNESCO HQ in
the middle of January 2009. The programme and activities will be announced in the
near future - this will be the more ‘political showcase’ of the events and the
format/theme is currently being decided.
3. Everyone agreed we need some form of ‘big bang’ opening on 1st January 2009;
the main idea so far is use the New Years Eve fireworks around the world to
springboard the IYA2009 celebrations (e.g. Sydney Harbour Bridge etc) but there is
also the idea of having a signal beamed down from a satellite or space-probe to
mark the event. Ideas welcome.
4. The Global IYA2009 Cornerstone Projects were endorsed by the SPoCs and
representatives with the following suggested changes etc:
a) The ‘24 Hours of Astronomy’ was changed to 4 Days of Astronomy (similar to
what we in the UK are intending doing) with the idea being to maximise event
opportunities because of weather and activities during 2 school days and a
weekend - the dates fit with what we have agreed in the UK. The 24-hour web-
cast from observatories will still take place over 24 hours though.
b) A new project was established: Developing Astronomy Globally (working title) -
a project that responds to the acknowledgement that astronomy needs to be
developed, both professionally (universities, research), publicly
communication, media) and educationally (schools) in various countries that do
not have strong astronomy communities. The implementation would be focused
on training and development at each of the levels mentioned above. This
would focus on developing countries and parts of developed countries that are
lagging behind. It will include such activities as research exchange programmes,
young astronomer development programmes, astronomy communication
training including workshops and resource sharing, infrastructure development
where possible (good amateur telescopes in developing countries)

IYA2009 Sessions

During Monday and Tuesday morning, UNESCO, the IYA2009 Executive Committee, the IYA2009 Secretariat, some Cornerstone Task Groups and the SPoCs presented the current status of where we are and plans of the different nations represented - see: http://www.communicatingastronomy.org/cap2007/programme.html

On Thursday morning a slot was devoted to a question and answer session chaired by Catherine Cesarsky with myself, Doug Isbell, Pedro Russo and Lars Lindbergh Christenson answering questions from the audience.

IYA2009 Cornerstone Projects Meetings were held at lunchtimes by the following groups:
• IYA 2009 Image Exhibition (the UK is very interested in this)
• IYA 2009 Galileo Teachers Training
• IYA2009 Portal to the Universe

During the coffee breaks, lunches and dinners there was a lot of very productive networking and exchanging of ideas.

Potential Meetings for 2008

In order to prepare IYA2009, The IYA2009 Secretariat with the LOC of the different meetings and conference are organising a SPoC meeting in every big region, some of them are a joint meeting with existing large astronomical meetings and the list below gives tentative suggestions and dates:

• February 2008: Asia/Pacific Meeting: Japan, China or Australia
• March 2008: Task Groups Coordinators Meeting, IYA2009 Secretariat,
Germany
• 5-10 April 2008: Africa/Middle East: Regional IAU Meeting, Cairo, Egypt
• 1-5 June 2008: North America: AAS/ASP IYA2009 meeting, St Louis
• July 2008: South and Central America Meeting: Machu Pichu, Peru
• 7 -12 September 2008: Europe Meeting: JEANAM 2008: Vienna, Austria

The UK will need to hold a one-day (at least) meeting and the question currently is whether to hold it alongside NAM (at Belfast) or to hold it more centrally (e.g. London, Birmingham) separate from NAM in order to catch a different and potentially wider audience.