Being Global: The World at Your Front

South East Asian Young Astronomer Collaboration ( SEAYC) has announced it's first meeting that will be held in Philipines during November 5-9, 2012.  The aim of the SEAYAC Meeting is to gather young astronomers (undergraduate, graduate and early post-docs) who are conducting research in astronomy and to provide a venue where they can present their work. To get more updates of the meeting, please feel free to visit the SEAYC webpage:  http://seayac.org/ You can get all the travel information from the official website of Consulate General of Republic of Philippines in Nepal:  http://www.voith.com.np/philcongen/ Southeast Asian Young Astronomers Collaboration or SEAYAC is a group for young astronomer in South East Asian Region. The main objective of SEAYAC is to encourage interaction and collaborations between young astronomers from all Southeast Asian nations.  Being a relatively new field in Southeast Asia, it is important that young astronome...

The Near Earth Object Working Group ( NEO-WG) of Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) has announced two important competitions. 1. Find An Asteroid Search Campaign in collaboration with IASC (http://iasc.hsutx.edu). It has slots for 10 - 15 teams, with 3 - 5 individuals each, to participate in an Asteroid Search Campaign. No previous knowledge is required and participants have the chance to discover an asteroid! Application deadline June 1 . While teams can be made up by individuals from around the world, SGAC would also like to see some regional or national teams, (e.g. Team Kiwi, Team UK, Team Latinamerica, etc.). That is where you come in! As you can imagine, this is a great outreach opportunity in your country, try to make the best of it. While doing so, please don't forget to spread the word about our other competition as well: 2. Move An Asteroid 2012 Technical Paper Competition - for the 5th year in a row, SGAC is looking for novel ideas with regard to asteroi...

The annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower is expected to peak this weekend. The mornings of May 5 and 6, 2012 are probably best for meteor-watching. But the largest full moon of 2012 on May 5 will drown these meteors in its glare. When no moon is in the sky to spoil the show, you typically see 10 to 20 meteors per hour at mid-northern latitudes and perhaps twice that number in the Southern Hemisphere, for the Eta Aquarid shower. This shower is like most others in that the best time to watch tends to be during the wee hours before dawn. he Eta Aquarid meteors, in particular, are strictly for night owls or early risers, if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere. This shower’s radiant point doesn’t rise over our horizons until around 2 or 3 a.m. The meteors are few and far even then, but the wee hours are a time for catching earth-grazing meteors in this shower. An earth-grazer is a long, slow, colorful meteor that horizontally streaks the sky. The closer to dawn, the more Eta Aquarid meteors you’r...

I am very happy to know Dr. Yael Naze has won the EuroPlanet Outreach Award 2012 for her extraordinary involvement for astronomy outreach in different communities. You can find the full stay here . Congratulations Yael, looking forward to hear more good news in coming days :)

April 30, Center for Public health and Environmental Development (CEPHED) in support of SSNC Sweden organised a half day interaction programme on Lead in paint at SAP-Falcha, Babarmahal, Kathmandu. The programme was inaugurated by Hon. Hem Raj Tater, Minister of Environment of Nepal. He briefed status of different laws and policies that government of Nepal going to implement for the green Nepal. The first section of the programme was intended to update the audience about the status of colour market in Nepal and how things are going, how lead comes in the paint, etc. The speakers of the section includes people from NAST, Ministry, National Lab, National and International Paint Industries. The interaction section began with the short presentation on Lead in Paint by Ram Charitra Shah, executive director and environment scientist at CEPHED. The hardwork to get all the stake holders under the same roof by the CEPHED remained praiseworthy. The interaction remained very fruitful with so...