GAM2017 AstroArt Contest Form
Please enter your artwork with the form below. If you are a teacher who is submitting for multiple students, you can either fill in the form for each student or you may also submit all of your entries via email to [email protected] . If you are submitting via email, please name the image file to match the last name of the student so we know which one is correct and include the Students names, titles/captions for each work along with your contact information. Thank you! Entrant's First Name* * Entrant's Last Name* Street Address* Country* * Contact email address* *...
Mike's Iranian Blog (3 of 8) - Workshop
Two pages from Ali Koohpaee's star chart. The eleven-year old amateur astronomer transfers his naked eye and telescopic sketches to the computer to produce a record of his observations. The weekend (Thursday and Friday) at the amateur astronomy workshop turned out to be far busier for me than anticipated. One hundred fifty amateur astronomers attended despite only six weeks notice. Most were university and secondary students, many others were teachers but almost all were young compared with amateur workshops in the US. The timing was difficult for many attendees with final exams and university entrance exams looming for most. But...
Mike's Iranian Blog (4 of 8) - Shiraz
Shiraz is a beautiful city in southern Iran known for its gardens, the tombs of famous poets and the nearby monuments of the early Persian empire. Indeed, the road sign that welcomes visitors to the city proclaims Shiraz as the country's center of culture. I don't know if that claim holds today but it seems likely to have been so centuries ago. If fact the Pars people of Fars Province in which Shiraz is located are the source for the terms “Persia” (the name of the country for over 2400 years) and “Farsi” (the common name of Persian, the most...
Mike's Iranian Blog (5 of 8) - Saadat-Shahr
At first Sa'adat-Shahr seemed like any other rural village in Iran. This agricultural town of 16,000 sits amid an oasis of fruit trees and grape vines but the buildings and walls of brown and grey blend with the stark landscape of Iran's southern desert. The passion of the citizens of Sa'adat-Shahr, however, is anything but typical. As we approached the town's main intersection we were startled to behold a huge sign declaring – first in English and then in Farsi – “We welcome the arrival of the astronomers of the USA and Germany to our city.” This was just the...
Mike's Iranian Blog (7 of 8) - Neishabour
Omar Khayyam is perhaps the best known Persian poet in the west. An important mathematician and astronomer, Khayyam lived in the 11th and 12th centuries and is revered in Iran as something of a renaissance man. One of a long line of Persian and other Islamic scientists, Khayyam's greatest accomplishments were as a mathematician, particularly his development of a new calendar. Before Khayyam, the solar calendar used for official purposes started over at year one with each change in government. The Islamic lunar calendar – out of sync with both the official solar calendar and the seasons – was often...
