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Would an imaging webinar work?


old_eyes

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Having seen all the enthusiastic support for imaging days, and the equally enthusiastic support for various locations, I wonder whether we can meet the need another way?

The problem is we all live scattered around the country and the North, Midlands and South still represent large areas. When you factor in actual travel times, it gets worse. Most of the Midlands sites suggested apart from Birmingham are further away from me in North Wales than London; if you consider travel time. Anything east of the pennines is a surprisingly long way away.

So wherever a group can get together, there will be many others who find it difficult.

The organisation I work with needs to contact groups of people all over the UK and we use a mix of face to face events and webinars. Face to face is clearly better than any kind of on-line interaction, but on-line is better than nothing.

You can't see pictures on a large projection screen, but you can see them on your PC, ask questions and have them answered. You can also save the whole webinar including any Q&A sessions for anyone to replay when it suits them.

An alternative we have also used is to record the voice of the speaker and what they are showing on the screen at a live event and make it available to those who could not attend. It is a bit of a hassle, but not too much if you are having the event anyway, and adds some real longer term value to the community.

Just a thought.

old_eyes

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Sounds like a good idea. Would certainly be cheaper for most people than travelling miles to get everyone to one place.

What would be needed to join in? Obviously a computer of sorts and, maybe, a web cam?

(You can tell i'm on the information super highway. It's just that I've stopped in a lay-by for a cup of tea.)

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Sounds like a good idea. Would certainly be cheaper for most people than travelling miles to get everyone to one place.

What would be needed to join in? Obviously a computer of sorts and, maybe, a web cam?

(You can tell i'm on the information super highway. It's just that I've stopped in a lay-by for a cup of tea.)

There are many ways of doing it. Easiest is with a broadband link a computer and a set of headphones.

You see the slides and hear the voice of the speaker. You type any questions into an instant messaging window that can be seen by the speaker who then responds. You really need two people to do this. One to give the talk/demo and one to field questions for the speaker and manage the time.

The nice thing is that you can also watch what is going on the speaker's computer screen so you can live demonstration of the processes they are using.

Next step up is to have a webcam for the speaker so you have a talking head. In my experience it adds relatively little and soaks up a lot of bandwidth. Giving the audience a video screen really stretches things, so don't go there unless it is absolutely essential.

The simplest approach works well enough and makes you less dependent on the IT knowledge and infrastructure of both speakers and audience.

old_eyes

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I think VNC tends to be used much more for taking control of another's computer, to set things up for them. I can see some use here (e.g., the instructor helping out a person who is struggling with software), but that would probably only work on a one-to-one basis.

The webinar itself, though, sounds like a great idea. Anybody know of a host? My employer uses MegaMeeting, but that's quite expensive and isn't really intended for one-off events.

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I think VNC tends to be used much more for taking control of another's computer, to set things up for them. I can see some use here (e.g., the instructor helping out a person who is struggling with software), but that would probably only work on a one-to-one basis.

The webinar itself, though, sounds like a great idea. Anybody know of a host? My employer uses MegaMeeting, but that's quite expensive and isn't really intended for one-off events.

I'll sniff around and see what I can find.

old_eyes

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How about recording the event and releasing it on video. Maybe a channel with the name of the forum could be made on youtube. That way any member could contribute with material.

If the channel then gets enough hits/subscriptions to be made a youtube partner then the group maintaining it could have some profit for their work. One of the features could be a monthly video with observing suggestions. Other could be a small video with the pictures of the week.

I'm just throwing some ideas in the air. To be honest I don't have the time to be involved in something like this on a regular basis, but maybe some of our members are retired and would enjoy such a project to keep busy on all the cloudy nights and, who knows, maybe get some money in return.

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A web seminar would be hard to put together, a video collection sounds much more do-able to me

Something like the ACP collection would be really good (DC-3 Dreams Videos) all it needs is something like Camtasia to record screen grabs and a mic feed

Rather than having a dis-organised chat room type question and answer session, why not just have a thread for it on here?

Infact, can you embed videos into threads here? That would be really slick

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he he nice :)

I'm willing to contribute in my limited time. I can make a video review on some of my gear or a video with monthly highlights.

Even if this goes slowly we could actually create a very nice resource for anyone involved, or wanting to get involved, in astronomy.

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