Happy New Year and Welcome to the International Year of Astronomy

Happy new year, Constant Reader, I hope 2008 was kind to you and those close to you, and that 2009 is wonderful for you. As for me, I hope 2009 is much more gentle on my family. C.R., this morning finds me taking time from my hectic holiday schedule to write these lines to you: eating, drinking (and putting on weight), traveling, reading, watching cricket, and much music have been the order of the day. The absence of my late dad is keenly felt by us all here, nothing is said but he is much in our thoughts. No official resolutions by me for the new year.

Much of my newspaper reading of late is laced with stories about the imminent demise of the Australian cricketing empire and marveling over the haste of many in pronouncing the death. Although the body is sick and the spirit a bit confused, I think the body is not dead yet!

2009 has been declared by UNESCO and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) as the the International Year of Astronomy (IYA09). It marks the 400th anniversary of the first astronomical use of the newly invented telescope by the Italian scientist, Galileo Galilei.

The invention of the telescope is credited to Hans Lippershey. Although spectacles and lenses has been around since the 12th or 13th centuries no one is recorded as experimenting with two lenses placed one behind the other. Lippershey, so the story goes, saw that objects were brought closer when two lenses were placed in this configuration; he applied for a patent with the Dutch Republic some time before October 1608. News of the discovery soon spread across Europe leading to experiments by scientists to replicate and improve the instrument. Galileo was the most successful and most remembered by history.

If you are in Australia go to the IYA09 Australian node (www.astronomy2009.org.au/) for local events, if elsewhere go to the IYA09 global site (www.astronomy2009.org/).