.Astronomy 2009

.Astronomy 2009

Nov 27 Well I can hardly believe it but the second .Astronomy conference is nearly here. Next week (Monday to Friday) 50 astronomers gather in the Lorentz Centre in Leiden to discuss all things digitally astronomical. I created and organised the first .Astronomy conference last year in Cardiff and was approached by Sarah Kendrew and Carolina Ödman shortly afterwards about doing a second event in the Netherlands. Since then we have assembled into a six-person organising committee and .Astronomy 2009 gradually heaved its way into being. The programme for the conference is a wide and varied affair all centred around the notion that the Internet can help astronomical research and outreach. Everyone there will be talking about new and interesting ways to make this happen. Everything from Microsoft's World Wide Telescope to never-before-seen Python scripts all have their place in .Astronomy. A full press release for the conference is available on the website. You can follow events on Twitter @dotastronomy and on UStream, where several of the talks will be broadcast. We will try and take questions from the web where possible - although I admit I've never tried that before. If you are interested in how the web can help astronomy - either in research our public outreach - then do try and join us online and if you're interested in attending a possible third .Astronomy event then please get in touch with me and I'll make a note of it... wherever it may be.