THROUGH THE NET TO THE COSMOS

Richard Phillips B.Sc., M.Sc.,FRAS, William Herschel Society, on 5 April 2002

Using a laptop computer with its display projected on a screen and connected to the Internet, the speaker took the audience surfing. He divided the sites into nine classifications that would interest people from those with a casual interest in astronomy to the more active amateur observer.

• Pictures from major observatories - Hubble Space Telescope and `Astronomical Picture of the Day', etc.

• Astronomical magazines accessible through the Internet.

• Information on modern big telescopes including access to robotic telescopes via the Internet.

• Local suppliers of astronomical telescopes and equipment.

• Observing aids - sites giving up-to-date information on aurorae, comets, space weather etc.

• Links to sites dealing with spaceflight - NASA, International Space Station transit forecasts etc.

• Organisations such as the BAA, IAU Central Bureau, Royal Observatory Greenwich.

• Television, radio programme sites dealing with astronomy.

• Access to UCL Library Resources which links with many other astronomical Internet sites not covered in the demonstration.

Some members of the audience suggested sites which they enjoyed and these were explored.

Following the demonstration, the speaker sent a copy of the links he had compiled, by e-mail, to those who had Internet access and were interested in receiving them:

01 Pictures

Anglo-Australian Observatory astronomical images - www.aao.gov.au/images

Hubble site - http://hubble.stsci.edu

SOHO images

http://sohowww.estec.esa.nl/data/realtime -images.html

Astronomy Picture of the Day

http://apod.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod

ESA Science SOHO

http://spdext.estec.esa.nl/content/news /index.cfm?aid=14&cid=12&oid=12302"

02 Magazines

Sky and Telescope magazine — home page

www.skypub.com/

Astronomy Now home page www.astronomynow.com/

03 Telescopes - robotic

Space Today Online - Deep Space Astronomy Telescopes — Nassau Astronomical Station

Space Today Online - Deep Space Astronomy Telescopes — Nassau Astronomical Stationhttp://www.spacetoday.org/DeepSpace/

Telescopes/Nassau.html

bradford -robotic -telescope

www.telescope.org/rti/

mike otis remote robotic cyber space telescope modern astronomy sky links otm observatory techn

http://home.midco.net/~otm/LINKS.HTML

Large Telescopes

Gemini Observatory Web site www.ast.cam.ac.uk/Gemini

Hubble Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility

http://ecf.hq.eso.org/

04 Suppliers

scs astro - telescopes, binoculars, ccd cameras & weather stations - www.scsastro.co.uk

www.astrobits.co.uk-

05 Observing aids

Comets currently visible

http://encke.jpl.nasa.gov/whats-visible\1"1999S"

ESO online digitised sky survey

http://arch-http.eso.org/dss/dss

Hipparcos Catalogue Plot

http://astro.estec.esa.nl/SA-general/Projects /Hipparcos/hiparcos/SelectArea.html

Your Sky - www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/

Aurora Watch UK--www.aurorawatch.york.ac.uk

Comet Ephemerides

http://encke.jpl.nasa.gov/eph.html

SpaceWeather.com — News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids - www.spaceweather.com

06 Spaceflight

NASA human space flight - http://spaceflight.nasa.com

Human Space Flight (HSF) - realtime data

http://spaceflight.nasa.com/realdata/sightings

The Hipparcos Space Astrometry Mission

http://astro.estec.esa.nl/SAgeneral/Projects /Hipparcos/hipparcos.html

07 Organisations

AAVSO - American Association Of Variable Star Observers - www.asvso.org

Wiruna - The ASNSW's Dark-Sky Observing Site - www.asnsw.com/wiruna/

British Astronomical Association home page www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~baa/

IAU Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams

http://cfa-harvard.edu/cfa/ps/cbat.html

The Royal Observatory Greenwich

www.rog.nmm.ac.uk

08 Television-Radio

BBC - Final Frontier

09 Information

UCL Library Astronomy Internet resources

www.ucl.ac.uk/Resources/MAPS/astro.htm

Analytical Graphics Inc., creators of Satellite Tool Kit, software for the Aerospace Industry - www.stk.com

Richard Phillips