I've spent the past 2 days talking to total of about 2000 people at the Science Museum in London, with Dr Haley Gomez (Cardiff University) and others. We were talking to people in the Antenna gallery whose sole purpose is to show people what is happening in science now. Not just things from the last 12 months, but really now. We stood by a 1:4 scale model of the Herschel Space Observatory which was launched into space only 2 weeks ago, on 18 May. Having a bright shiny model next to you is a great talking point.
These people were a self selected audience, so you could argue that they are mostly likely to be interested in talking to someone about science. In a museum which is filled with models of spacecraft, the thing which made Herschel stand out is that it has only recently been launched. When you tell people that, we saw their attitude completely change. It became something which was relevent to now, and was something exciting.
We could see that the visitors saw astronomy and space as something that they could engage with and they asked how they could get involved. At that point LCOGT steps in; the visitors were very excited to hear about our plans for the network and the programmes they can be involved with. Many of the visitors were from UK and had kids of school ages, so I was very pleased to tell them of the unique relationship we have with Faulkes Telescope Project and told them to get their teachers to register their school.
If you want to get involved and be kept informed sign up to our mailing list (via the form on the website home) or if you are in education in UK sign up with Faulkes Telescope Project.
