Inaccuracy in reporting astronomy and science Options

[As old as Voyage...]

I have just watched the BBC's report on the newly created 3D map of dark matter using Hubble data; and it made my heart sink.

I applaud the BBC for giving airtime to such discoveries, but for such a respected organisation their research was awful.

It's no wonder the vast majority of people are either bewildered or disinterested the the universe as a whole when the facts they are given are completely wrong.

It's a shame that tonight 60 million or so people in the UK and many other people around the world were told Hubble shone a beam of light out into the depths of the universe and studied how it was bent by the gravity of dark matter billions of light years away!

And this was a report from the BBCs science correspondant!

I remain downhearted that perhaps the most important story of the week was reported in such a shoddy manner.

Does anyone else feel space is being let down by TV coverage?

[ollopa]

Another cool project for Google, methinks. Since there are more stars than people who have ever lived (or likely ever will), this has real outreach potential. Even an informal database on Google Sky might give a new impetus to skywatching. "Aunt Ethel is just to the right of Regulus. Whaddya mean you haven't heard of Regulus?"

[Stu]

Another cool project for Google, methinks. Since there are more stars than people who have ever lived (or likely ever will), this has real outreach potential. Even an informal database on Google Sky might give a new impetus to skywatching. "Aunt Ethel is just to the right of Regulus. Whaddya mean you haven't heard of Regulus?"

... except - as I understand it - all the stars these companies offer are far below naked eye visibility, so a Google-type database would be next to useless for people who a) don't know the sky, and don't have a telescope.

This is something only people who have actually spent years looking at and studying the sky can understand, just how hard it is to find things in the sky. The bright stars might be obvious, but none of those are up for naming, only mega-faint stars are. So a Google-type database/interface thingy would have to be written in such a way as to give people who have no knowledge of the sky whatsoeever directions to "their" star. That means locating the constellation it's in by entering its exact co-ordinates. Then you'd need to determine that constellation's location in the sky... that constellation's visibility in the sky for that viewer (no point someone in New York looking for Crux Australis or Pavo, etc)... that constellation's visibility in the sky at that time of year if it is visible from their latitude (no point our New Yorker looking for Orion in July, etc). Then, with all those things tackled, you'd have to find a way to teach the viewer how to "star hop" from a bright nearby star to the area where their target star is, and then you'd have to help them distinguish that star from all the others.

Sounds easy? Just pour some sugar or salt into your hand, tip it out onto a tabletop and look at it...

...that's what a starfield looks like through a telescope.

The best astronomy outreach is still organising a star-watch or an eclipse-watch in a park or school field, getting together a whole bunch of amateur astronomers with telescopes, inviting the pubvlic, and then just showing people cool things in the night sky. Whenever we hold one here in Kendal I come away bouncing like Tigger, it's such a buzz. The looks on people's faces when they see a galaxy, or Saturn's rings, or the Moon's craters through a telescope for the first time is just incredible. And introducing people to the stars... pointing out Vega, Deneb and the Pole Star to them, helping them find Orion and Taurus in the sky, introducing them to the characters and legends behind Perseus, Andromeda etc, it's just magical, and as good as Google Sky gets it will never replace the experience of having someone stand with you on a cold and frosty night and tell you "See that star overhead? That's..."

[akuo]

The bright stars might be obvious, but none of those are up for naming, only mega-faint stars are.

Not so. There are only a couple of hundred stars with proper names. There are plenty of naked eye stars with just Baeyr or Tycho catalogue number at best.

[Stu]

Not so. There are only a couple of hundred stars with proper names. There are plenty of naked eye stars with just Baeyr or Tycho catalogue number at best.

I meant that they're neither offered by the star naming companies, or by the IAU. As far as I know. But even if I'm wrong in that, here's the bottom line - none of these companies has any right to name a single star in the night sky. No getting around that.

Think of it this way. Here's a pic I took of Kendal Castle (where I hold the Kendal "skwatch" events at, by the way) back in September...



Now, if I set up a website, offering to let people name the blades of grass on that hillside and hilltop after a loved one for £25 a time (or for another £20 you can have one of the stones in the castle wall named after your loved one instead, let's call it our Deluxe Package) for which they would get just a fancy-looking certificate, how hard would you laugh? Well, that's what these star registry companies are doing. Taking money off people for giving names to things they don't own.

[nprev]

Well, that's what these star registry companies are doing. Taking money off people for giving names to things they don't own.

Just so. That's why the IAU, the only agency with the internationally recognized authority to assign nomenclature to astronomical objects (by definition!), needs to step in & derail these predators.