Around the World in 80 Telescopes – online

Here’s a nicely informative diversion for a Friday afternoon. In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 – additional Nasa website – a “100-hour, round-the-clock, round-the-globe event that includes live webcasts from research observatories, public observing events and other activities around the world” – 100 Hours Of Astronomy. Current live 24-hour webcast, which began 03 April 09:00 (Universal Time) – Around the World in 80 Telescopes. And the webcast schedule [pdf file]. Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has more links. There are already several webcasts archived [scroll down] from Hawaii, Japan, Germany, New Zealand and Australia. Enjoy. Add Hubble next, 5.20 UT. 6.20pm local. Update Some particularly interesting telescopes still to come. Details below the fold.
Here’s the live schedule for the next few hours of the 24 hour webcast. Times given in Universal Time [add 1 hour for local BST]

03 April 19:20 SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) and TRACE (Transition Region and Coronal
Explorer) (Space)
03 April 19:40 STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) (Space)
03 April 20:00 Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) (USA)
03 April 20:20 Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) (Space)
03 April 20:40 NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (Space)
03 April 21:00 The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) (South Africa)
03 April 21:20 NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (Space)
03 April 21:40 Observatoire de Haute-Provence (France)
03 April 22:00 Calar Alto Observatory (Centro Astronómico Hispano Alemán) (Spain)
03 April 22:20 IRAM 30-metre telescope (Spain)
03 April 22:40 Hinode (SOLAR-B) (Space)

Pete Baker