WINTER PROJECT

Winter is fast approaching. As the winds begin to blow and the snow begins to fall, many of us dread looking forward to several months being cooped up in our homes.

Well, in addition to attacking items on our "Must Read" list, how about tackling a new project this winter: learning about Astronomy.

NASA has committed to another repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope that will keep it functioning until at least 2013, sending us back more of those fantastic photos, and enabling our scientists to continue to learn more about our Universe and how it works. We are all interested in knowing what happens in our neighborhood, our town, our state ---- how about finding out what's happening in our little corner of the galaxy?

But before you run down to Walmart and buy a $40 telescope you should learn a bit about Astronomy. There is tons of information in your library and on the internet. However, before wading through all this technical printed material, how about listening to some people talk about Astonomy and determine if you are really interested?

There is a new podcast site on the web called www.astronomycast.com/ This enables you to listen to very neophyte-friendly broadcasts on Astronomy which will enable you to get started properly and in a cost-effective manner. You can even sign up for an RSS feed which will load the programs onto your computer automatically. Give it a listen! --- particularly Episode 7 which deals with getting started in Astronomy. Never listened to a podcast before? Well, this is a good opportunity to get started!

Because of all the free materials available, an overview of Astronomy could be a very low cost project to add to services your library or your Friends group provides to your patrons this cold wintery season.