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Stargazing Live effect

Albireo380

By Albireo380
in The Astro Lounge

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Albireo380

Albireo380

Posted
Posted

Wow! We had 48 members of the public come along (on a cloudy nght) to a moonwatching/stargazing event at the Botanic Gardens, run by the Astro Soc of Glasgow tonight. We had to turn another 12 people away (for health and safety reasons and simple lack of space).

We usually get about 20 people on a clear night.

We put on 3 short talks as there was no chance to use any 'scopes (cloud, cloud, cloud :icon_eek: ). We gave out cardboard planispheres and showed pretty pictures of DSOs etc taken by members.

People seemed to enjoy it, even without seeing mountains/craters on the moon, Jupiter and a couple of DSOs (our standard objects on a clear night).

But wow - if this is the effect "Stargazing Live" has on the public, then I hope the Beeb does it again soon.

Tom

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Dave S

Dave S

Posted
Posted
That's amazing! I've never seen so many new additions in the "Welcome" section of the forum either.

Can't keep up with all the new posts because of it. I could do with a full time job as a forum reader (if only)

Dave...

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johnh

johnh

Posted
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Amost everyone who finds out I am an amature astronomer professes an interest and fascination with the subject, for many newbies it will be a 1 week/month exercise but there will be those who stick at it and get a great deal from it as we do here.

JohnH.

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robwoods

robwoods

Posted
Posted

Hi!

I probably would not be here had it not been for the programme, I have had a vague interest for many years but the families enthusiasm (The presenter certainly appealed to my 15 year old daughter) lead me to taking the plunge, I belong to a few forums, mainly PC and Motorcycling and the new activity here is astounding!

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Mr Spock

Mr Spock

Posted
Posted

I hope the BBC do more programs. It does seem to be one of those hobbies you get into on your own, unless there are programs like this to help you along. Sometimes people have an interest in something but just never know how to go about things. Not everyone is a Galileo in waiting :icon_eek:

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FLO

FLO

Posted
Posted

The programs were undoubtedly successful. This chart puts it into perspective, it shows the number of page views at FLO's website.

stargazing_live_affect.jpg

The two dips are Christmas day and New Years day, the sharp increase must surely be as a result of the television shows. From what we are hearing other dealers are experiencing the same. This is excellent news for astronomy in the UK and evidence that interest in astronomy is strong :icon_eek:

Dear BBC, thank-you very much. Can we have some more please... :D

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RikM

RikM

Posted
Posted

We had over 200 people come along to the planetary observing event Cotswold AS held in Shurdington last Saturday. We normally about 35 people at our normal meetings and about 10-12 who stay on for the observing session afterwards if the sky is clear. We did have a beautiful clear sky on Saturday, which surely helped, but even so the response from the public was amazing.

Big thumbs up for the BBC and I look forward to more.

Rik

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JamesM

JamesM

Posted
Posted

Anything that gets people outside and looking upwards definitely gets my vote. Stargazing Live has clearly made a difference to people wanting to know more about astronomy and if they were able to get along to an event that was fortunate to have clear skies and to observe the universe then even better.

I can't help feel, that for many who did not have clear skies, their perception of how things appear is still heavily influenced by astrophotography which I'm afraid won't help sustain their interest in the longer term unless they themselves become imagers. I am not arguing that this is a bad thing, far from it, and I am the first person to applaud and be amazed at the quality of images produced today! However, I have in fact read every new persons introduction to the forum since this 'live' event and if I had a pound for every person who said, "...and I'm also interested in astrophotography," then maybe I could afford to do it at this same level too. :icon_eek::D:D On the subject of imaging, the BBC did include images that are not possible to obtain using a DSLR on a tripod and that gross misrepresentation does no one any favours in the longer term!

Clear skies

James

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Parus major

Parus major

Posted
Posted

Likely a fair amount more were watching than they thought would, given the lowest viewing figures of Eastenders in years. Folk apparently switched over to other things in droved due to the most sickening storyline ever to appear on a soap.

Might have been a pro astro conspiracy by Auntie? :icon_eek:

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shaunster

shaunster

Posted
Posted

Looks like stargazing live lost viewers as the shows went on

Stargazing Live (from DS ratings)

Mon: BBC Two’s three part Stargazing Live enjoyed a good opening night attracting 3.393 million viewers, an 11.7 per cent audience share between 8pm and 9pm on Monday evening, with a further 203,000 viewers watching on the BBC HD channel.

Tue: 3.05m

Wed: Stargazing Live continued with 2.71m (11.2%) from 8pm and 182k (0.8%) on BBC HD

Not too bad, better than the usual bb2 figures for that time I am sure

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rorschach

rorschach

Posted
Posted

TBH the timing was incidental for me. My son had a small plastic newtonian which I upgraded to a Meade etx . when he vied Jupiter (and let me have a gander) i was truly blown away, and we dicided that we needed a scope each!

just pointing at the sky at the moment, and using the ipone app "sky walk" to find out what we are looking at. It really rocks and theres a hot chocolate for the both of us when we come in! :icon_eek:

stargazing live was the icing on the cake (we went out and got his book too, its worth a read!)

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