Thursday, September 29, 2011

Latest Project News...

I must apologise to our readers for the lack of consistent posts this month.  A lot has been going on and the status of the project is now at an exciting point.  I am also in the final stages of writing up my doctoral thesis on Aboriginal Astronomy, which I plan to submit in just a few weeks.  This is one of the main reasons posts have been a bit erratic this month :-)

The panel session on Indigenous Astronomy at the ACMI film exhibition in Melbourne last week was a success, although only myself and one other panelist were able to make it (mostly due to the Qantas strikes).  We had a great session and the audio will be released as a podcast soon.  Read a blog about the event from Nick Lomb of Sydney Observatory.

Duane Hamacher (left) and Munya Andrews (right) at the ACMI in Melbourne.

We are finishing new research papers with exciting results, which we will submit to journals in the next month or so.  Future blog posts will focus on this emerging research.

We have been contacted by a donor through a community foundation that wishes to present us with a VERY healthy research grant!  This is fantastic news and ensures that top-quality research and outreach on Aboriginal Astronomy will continue.  Funding is always a scarce commodity and much of the time we could be using for research we spend looking for new sources of funding, so generous grants like this are an amazing benefit all around.  If anyone else is interested in donating to our project, feel free to contact me... your donation will be well utilised! (Contact details are on the right sidebar labeled "Contact").

And finally, Macquarie University has recently purchased a new state-of-the-art mobile planetarium, which is absolutely amazing.  We are hoping to be able to take the planetarium to Indigenous communities as an outreach tool for sharing both Western and Aboriginal astronomy.  More to come!

Cheers,
Duane Hamacher

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