1) National Outreach Contact (NOC) Corner: News from USA

a) Maunakea Coin Contest

The Maunakea Coin Contest aims to raise awareness of the convergence between astronomy (such as the night sky, constellations, and telescopes) and the Hawaiian culture of Maunakea (such as plants, animals, insects, the environment, and natural history) among K-12 students on the Big Island of Hawai‘i. K-12 students are invited to create the design for a coin that includes both astronomy and Hawaiian themes related to Maunakea and to express their aloha and respect for the impressive mountain. The deadline is Friday 10 March 2017. 

Learn more about the contest: http://mkaoc.org/coin/2017  

2)  National Outreach Corner: News from Portugal

a) AstroCamp 2017

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Centre for Astrophysics of the University of Porto (CAUP) are collaborating to support AstroCamp 2017, an astronomy-focused summer academic programme for secondary school students. The Summer AstroCamp 2017 will be held from 6 to 20 August in northern Portugal, at the Centre for Environmental Education and Interpretation of the Corno de Bico Protected Landscape. The applicant with the best application from one of ESO’s Member States who is eligible to apply will win a bursary offered by ESO that will cover the camp fee.


Read more (in English) http://www.eso.org/public/unitedkingdom/announcements/ann17006/?lang

3) Naval Hill Planetarium: Context-appropriate Content Development Project

This is a Task Force 3 – Public Outreach funded project for 2017 and will focus on developing new content for planetariums. The Naval Hill Planetarium is presently the only digital planetarium in South Africa and it’s patrons come from vastly diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. In order to make pre-rendered shows (typically produced in developed countries in the northern hemisphere) accessible and relevant, the team from Naval Hill Planetarium will produce supporting full-dome planetarium content and translate existing content that is culturally relevant and speaks to the needs of the local population.

Find more details on the project here: http://www.astro4dev.org/blog/2017/02/07/overview-of-project-nhp/ 

4) SkyLight — a Global Science Opera: The Refugee Song and Dance

"SkyLight — a Global Science Opera" is a project officially endorsed by IAU-Cosmic Light, part of UNESCO's International Year of Light 2015 (IYL2015) and is the first science opera in history to be written together by a global community of children, teachers, scientists and artists from 35 nations. The Refugee Song and Dance is the finale to the opera's 2016 edition. It celebrates and shares the contributions of modern science to our understanding of humanity's common origin in the stars, and how we now have detailed knowledge of our inter-dependencies, our inter-relationships, and our interconnections. 

You can find the new finale of Skylight Opera as a song and dance that represents our common origins in the stars here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWXAvdmRMcM 

5)  Commemorating the first female astronomer — Hypatia of Alexandria 


Attention Hypatia fans around the world! Currently 20 March is being petitioned as an ideal date to commemorate the first female astronomer — Hypatia of Alexandria. As the petition gains momentum — there are 40 participating countries overall, Uruguay, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Chile having recently joined — the organisation is aiming to formalise a proposal to UNESCO so that on Hypatia Day we can globally celebrate Women in Science day. 

You can vote and learn more about the project here http://bit.ly/2kKt1TA  

6) Let’s celebrate planetariums around the world!


The International Day of Planetaria (IDP) goal is to involve the international planetarium community in a collaboration that promotes awareness of planetariums to the public. The IDP was first conceived by the Associazione Amici dei Planetari in Italy. In 1995, when other planetariums in Europe joined in the celebration, it became a truly international day. Today it is also celebrated in the United States and Australia and it hopes to continue to grow towards having a global reach. 

The International Day of Planetaria (IDP) will be celebrated on 12 March 2017 and all planetariums, regardless of affiliation, are invited to take part. See https://ips-planetarium.site-ym.com/?page=IDP   

7) Making the Case: Outreach & Communications for Large, International Science Projects 


“Making the Case:  Outreach & Communications for Large, International Science Projects” is a three-day workshop that will provide Workforce, Education, Public Outreach and Communications (WEPOC) leaders from high-energy physics and astronomy projects with a forum for considering some fundamental questions for large, international science projects. The workshop will run from 11 to 13 April 2017 and will be hosted in Pasadena, California.  

For more information please see: http://conference.ipac.caltech.edu/wepoc2017  

8) Backyard Worlds: Planet Nine

Backyard Worlds is hoping to discover a large planet at the fringes of our solar system — a world astronomers call Planet Nine. But Backyard Worlds need your help! Finding such dim objects requires combing through images by eye, to distinguish moving celestial bodies from ghosts and other artefacts. So come and join the search — there are many images to look through. In the end you might discover a rogue world that's even nearer to the Sun than Proxima Centauri!

Discover more about the project and how to contribute here: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/marckuchner/backyard-worlds-planet-9 

9) Meetings & Global Events

Here you can find a list of astronomy outreach & education conferences and events around the world. Plan ahead for a year full of interesting events!

Recently added

Robotic Telescopes, Student Research and Education (RTSRE) Conference
Dates: 18–22 June 2017
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
More information: http://rtsre.org/ 

Important Dates 

13th Asian-Pacific Regional IAU Meeting (APRIM 2017)
New Deadline for Abstract Submission: 15 March 2017
Date: 3–7 July 2017
Location: Taipei, Taiwan
More Information: http://www.aprim2017.tw/   

Upcoming

a) Central European Deepsky Imaging Conference (CEDIC)
Date: 10–12 March 2017
Location: Linz, Austria
More information: http://www.cedic.at/

b) Global Astronomy Month
Date: April 2017
Location: All around the world
More information: http://www.astronomerswithoutborders.org/ 

c) 10th International Meeting of Astronomy and Astronautics 
Date: 6–8 April 2017
Location: Campos, RJ, Brazil
More Information: http://bit.ly/2e3Gj5k  

d) Making the Case:  Outreach & Communications for Large, International Science Projects 
Date: 11–13 April 2017
Location: Pasadena, CA, USA
More information: http://conference.ipac.caltech.edu/wepoc2017  

e) Yuri’s Night
Date: 12 April
Location: All around the world
More information: https://yurisnight.net/

f) Fourth Middle-East and Africa Regional IAU Meeting (MEARIM IV)
Date: 22–25 May, 2017
Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
More Information: http://www.eorcworkshop.com/mearim-iv-home 

g) Robotic Telescopes, Student Research and Education (RTSRE) Conference
Dates: 18–22 June 2017
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
More information: http://rtsre.org/ 

h) Starmus Festival IV: Life And The Universe
Date: 18–23 June 2017
Location: Trondheim, Norway
More information: https://www.starmus.com/ 

i) European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS)
Date: 26–30 June 2017
Location: Prague, Czech Republic
More information: http://eas.unige.ch/EWASS2017/about.jsp 

j) Asteroid Day
Date: 30 June 2017
Location: Around the world
More Information: http://asteroidday.org/ 

k) Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting 2017
Date: 2–6 July 2017
Location: University of Hull, United Kingdom 
More Information: https://nam2017.org/

l) 13th Asian-Pacific Regional IAU Meeting (APRIM 2017)
Date: 3–7 July 2017
Location: Taipei, Taiwan
More Information: http://www.aprim2017.tw/  

m) International Symposium on Astronomy and Astrobiology Education
Date: 3–8 July 2017
Location: Utrecht, Netherlands
More Information: http://ise2a.uu.nl/ 

n) European Planetary Science Congress 2017
Date: 17–22 September 2017
Location: Radisson Blu Hotel Latvija, Riga, Latvia
More Information: http://www.epsc2017.eu/ 

o) 3rd COSPAR Symposium
Date: 18–22 September 2017
Location: Jeju Island, South Korea, 
More information: https://cosparhq.cnes.fr/ 

p) World Space Week 2017
Dates: 4–10 October 2017
Location: All around the world
More Information: http://www.worldspaceweek.org/theme/ 

q) International Observe the Moon Night
Date: 28 October 2017
Location: All around the world
More Information: http://observethemoonnight.org/ 

r) Communicating Astronomy with the Public - CAP2018
Date: 24–28 March 2018
Location: Fukuoka, Japan
More Information: http://www.communicatingastronomy.org/cap2018/ 

s) International Planetarium Society 2018
Date: 1–6 July 2018
Location: Toulouse, France
More Information: http://www.ips-planetarium.org/page/IPS2018Toulouse  

Have we missed something? Then share your astronomy outreach and education international meetings or events with us via outreach@iau.org.

10) IAU Astronomy Outreach Newsletter in other languages

-     Translations into Serbian are available, by Dr. Liliana Gracanin from Serbia: https://twitter.com/IAU_srpski ;
-     Translations into Spanish are available, by the Association of Amateur Astronomers from León, Nicaragua: http://asafile.blogspot.jp/p/blog-page_12.html ;
-     If you want to receive the Japanese newsletter translation, please subscribe to the Japanese Amateur Astronomers Association here: http://www.jaaa-astro.jp/jaaa-ml.html ;
-     Translations into Galician are available, by Agrupación Astronómica Coruñesa Ío, in Spain here: http://agrupacionio.com/gl/tag/boletin-iau    
-     You can find older issues of this newsletter in Spanish by the Astronomical Spanish Society here: http://www.sea-astronomia.es/drupal/content/newsletter-iau-noc.  

If you are interested in translating our newsletter to your language, please let us know via outreach@iau.org.