Report: 3rd Seasons without Borders

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Thilina Heenatigala

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Member Since: Nov 2009

Report

The 3rd "Seasons without Borders" (SwB) concluded successfully last June 2010 celebrating the beginning of winter/summer seasons in the southern and northern hemispheres.

In typical AWB tradition, groups from Brazil, Canada, Iraq, Iran, Japan, New Zealand, Pakistan, Portugal, Uruguay and USA gathered and celebrated the solstice under the theme "Two seasons, One earth, One people".

Amateur Astronomers Association of Kurdistan/Iraq (AAAK) celebrated the Solstice at Minara Park in Erbil City, Iraq, where they also hosted the World Music Day Festival. The park was full of foreigners listening to music and looking through the eyepiece of telescopes. It was reported that German, Japanese, U.S., Iranian, and French visitors all celebrated with them. (Read more)

Two groups from Iran also joined in the celebration. Urmia Night Sky held a public observing night at the Parke Jangali. Meanwhile, at the Milad Tower in Iran, Asemaneshab TV show (IRIB4 Channel) did a special broadcast on a StarParty which was available via internet.

Sharing Space - a group from New Zealand held an online event too.

AWB NC for Brazil - Marcelo de Oliveria Souza partnered with Andrea Sanchez from Uruguay, with a videoconferencing event. Eighty children from Brazil and forty children from Uruguay had live feed with each other and participated in each others solstice event.

Meanwhile, in the Northern Hemisphere, Parsonsfield, Maine, U.S.A., Joan Chamberlain set up her scope on her front lawn and shared the Summer Solstice event with neighbors, inviting them to look at Venus and Saturn, as well as the Moon, as the night moved into the first day of Summer—which arrived complete with Maine’s legendary mosquitoes. (Full report with photos)

Another group - Sunbeam - from Phoenix, Arizona, USA celebrated SwB3 with a group of homeschooling children who spent an afternoon studying the seasons and making projects to show the different seasons in the two hemispheres. Here a beautiful video from the event lead by Jill Reed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw12xxc0ILI

AWB NC for Pakistan: Khalid Marwat organized an event via Karachi Amateur Astronomers' Society (KAAS) to observe and record the shortest shadows of mosque's minaret at noon in their Malir Community Center. They hope these data will verify the significance of solstices and true mechanism of earth's orbit can be understood from this experiment.

Nucleo Interactivo de Astronomia (NUCLIO) group from Lisbon, conducted a Solar Observation session lead by Mario Ramos. The event started with a brief explanations about the electromagnetic spectrum, the Sun (composition, how it works, atmosphere, magnetic cycle...). This was followed by an observation session of the Sun both in visual light and Ha.

Astronomy Club of Teikyo University (Utsunomiya Campus) also held their monthly star party along with SwB3. The main focus was to educate public on light pollution.

Canada celebrated the SwB3 not with one, but two events! They had the fabulous "MallinCam,” mounted on a 10” Meade LX-200. Glenn Norman lead the both events with the support of his friends. Read the full report with more photos here.

The 3rd Seasons without Borders event concluded successfully. A very special thanks to AWB National Coordinator of Iraq - Azhy Hasan for putting together a beautiful poster (yet again). Until next time. Clear Skies to all.

Report by: Thilina Heenatigala.