In the kind of circles I run in (you know, my high falootin’ scene) I am often asked where to find astronomy resources for the everyman. These people, and the occasional blog reader’s email are always told the same thing: download the Jodcast.

I have mentioned the Jodcast before on this blog but I think stuff like this can always do with reiterating. Especially since I now have readers!

The Jodcast is an IOP and STFC funded podcast from Jodrell Bank. You get the name now, yeah?

You can download the Jodcast either as a full show, or in sections, depending on which bit you’re after. They also have French, Portuguese, Hindi, Farsi and Chinese (is that a language?) news feeds. The show is monthly, with an ‘extra’ show mid-month acting something like the extra-features for the first show.

The main topics of interest of the moment are covered as well as what you might like to take a look at in the sky, and how. They also interview some people and they do a nice job of spacing out the hour-long show so that its more chunkable for your listening. The presenters are affable and the show would fall into a ‘family’ category by my reckoning. I’ve certainly never heard them use the S(aturn), F(ar Infrared) or C(omet) words.

Their RSS feed can be found right here, or just search for the Jodcast in iTunes. You might also be nice and write them an iTunes review while you’re there.

Stuart (Astronomy Blog) has been busy working on the telescope XML that has been discussed before. Well he has actually posted some working feeds in what he called STML (see post title).

In response I’ve tried to create Google Sky equivalent KML files. These just read in the STML feeds and put a little icon onto Google Sky with a bit of information from the feeds.

Download the Telescope STML Feeds Google Sky Tracker here

It’s a work in progress and I hope that Stuart will keep expanding the idea. I think it has lots of potential. In fact I’m doing a talk about it tomorrow.

I was listening to the May edition of the Jodcast earlier and they were talking to one Carole Mundell who works at the Liverpool Telescope with Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs).

GRBs are highly energetic, and extremely short-lived flashed of gamma rays that are seen all over the sky. They were first detected by US Military satellites as their signatures looked like nuclear tests. Obviously though, as opposed to a nuclear test, these GRBs happened in the wrong direction (skyward not groundward). Astronomers later became interested when the US Army published its data and since then these events have become the object of study.

GRBs are the most luminous events in the whole universe (so far as we know). They may well be the product of colliding neutron stars or the emmission from jets shooting out of Wolf-Rayet stars as they collapse into black holes created inside of themselves (depicted in image). Whatever they are they are interesting and the astronomy community is out to find them.

The trouble is that they are very short lived. They can last for just milliseconds or at the most a few minutes. This lead scientists and researchers to have to use the height of technology to spot them. NASA’s Swift satellite is just such an example of the kind of thing that could not have been done even a few years ago. Swift was launched in 2004 and watched the sky for the unique signature of a GRB. As soon as it finds one, messages are relayed to the ground within a few seconds and within just two or three minutes (with any luck) a robotic telescope on the Earth (such as the Liverpool Robotic telescope) is turning to look at the source. Whilst Swift can measure the GRB’s spectrum we need to observe these events in other wavelengths to really begin to understand them.

At the same time as the telescopes begin to move around a text message is sent to a whole host of astronomers around the world, alerting them that a burst has occurred. That way if they want they can log in, over the internet, to the telescope system and watch too. I thought that was pretty cool.

You can download the May 2007 edition of The Jodcast right here.

You may recall I blogged about The Jodcast. There are some podcasts I find I listen to on my iPod and there others I listen to on my Mac. The former is easy but the latter can be annoying - you have to open iTunes and open it there etc etc - how tiresome(!). So i like to go and get the dashboard widget of these podcasts and have them close to hand.

I couldn’t find one on the Jodcast website so I thought I’d spend a half hour making them one, so here it is. Easy enough to use, it gives you a drop down list of the latest Jodcasts and lets you listen by pressing play. It’ll even remember the playback position for you and also allow to subscribe via iTunes if you so wish. If anyone wants to port it, or recreate it for the Yahoo! Widgets Engine then feel free.

What do you call a podcast from Jodrell Bank? Well duh, its a Jodcast (Link). Running since early 2006, the Jodcast from Manchester’s world-class, historical radio scope is quite good fun. I’ve listened to the latest episode and also the special NAM episodes so far and have to say I rather like it.

It does have, you’ll be glad to know, a good amount of astronomy content. In fact it would be ideal for the astronomy enthusiast who doesn’t have access to journals etc. It is long and runs to just over an hour an episode (excluding the NAM specials) but since it’s only once a month this seems just about right. The guys who make it clearly have a sense of humour and they also give a crap - which you’d be surprised but can seem a novelty sometimes in academia.

I am now subscribed and will keep listening for at least a couple more episodes to see how it fits into my iPod’s busy life. I wish them the best of luck - not that they need it since their subscription base is in the thousands after just over a year. Well done them.