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YES WE CAN! ASTRONOMY EXPERIENCED ANYWHERE, ANYTIME BY ANYONE. T. Stevenson1,2 , A. Jacob1, G. Wyatt 1
1Sydney Observatory, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, AUSTRALIA 2The University of Sydney, Faculty of Arts, Museum Studies)
*Corresponding author Email: [email protected]
ABSTRACT Sydney Observatory is a heritage site, a public observatory and a museum of astronomy under the stewardship of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences.
Using Sydney Observatory as a case study for this paper, we examine how a small Museum, with limited resources, has engaged in social media and produced live on-‐line transmissions of astronomical events such as eclipses. By comparing and analysing the on-‐site and web-‐based visitor figure attendances, and considering other factors such as the production of new content, we argue that Sydney Observatory’s traditional on-‐site public offer now has a meaningful and effective on-‐line and social media presence.1
Key words: astronomy, blog, Facebook, museum, technology, twitter, public observatory
INTRODUCTION Sydney Observatory is a state heritage listed site with an 1804 fort, an 1848 signal station and an observatory building dating from 1858. From being a powerful seat of knowledge in the nineteenth century, Sydney Observatory’s role changed in 1982 from research astronomy to science communication, a public observatory and a museum. It is a site full of fascinating history and a great place to have a photograph taken with a copper dome and a brass telescope.
In 2006 the public, when surveyed, used passive terms to describe the Observatory, such as ‘an oasis in the city’ and ‘hidden gem’. But over the past few years the visitor and media perception of Sydney Observatory has changed through Sydney Observatory’s close contact with the media, streaming events live on the internet, an Astronomy Blog, Twitter and Facebook sites. These reach into the lives of people near and far. In this paper we will explain why and how Sydney Observatory has embraced social and other on-‐line media and what the results of these experiences. We begin with information about visitor attendance trends and how we influenced Sydney Observatory’s identity through changes in attitudes and marketing.
ON-‐SITE ATTENDANCES TREND CO-‐INCIDES WITH VISITOR PERCEPTION Figure 1 charts Sydney Observatory’s visitor attendances for the past thirty years. The rises and falls have been influenced by several factors.
An exhibition and a series of public events were produced for the return of Halley’s comet in 1986, which is the first significant rise in visitor attendances. There was another obvious increase in 1997 when a new exhibition ‘By the light of the Southern Stars’ bought back Sydney Observatory’s heritage collection to the site. The increase in visitation was sustained by these changes to the site. A 3-‐D Space Theatre with short astronomy movies produced by Swinburne University’s Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing was installed in 2003 and in 2013 a new Digitarium Zeta digital planetarium with a custom-‐built dome by Vert Design was installed. Our attendance figures show an up-‐lift that was closely associated with these improved
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facilities. But the other strong factors were specific astronomical events, such as planets close to Earth (Mars in 2003), transits of Venus (2004 and 2012) and solar and lunar eclipses (2011, 2012 and 2013).
The Fall and Rise oF sydney
obseRvaToRy
30 years of preserving astronomy &
communicating with the publicA.P. Jacob1, T.M. Stevenson1,2, N.R. Lomb1, G. Wyatt1
1. Sydney Observatory, part of the Powerhouse Museum, NSW; 2. Museum Studies, The University of Sydney, NSW
“I was thrilled to be close to the historic 1874 large refracting telescope! The modern computer-controlled reflecting telescope was interesting although it did not bring me an equal level of excitement as the 1874 telescope.” — Visitor comment on Tripadvisor, 29 July 2012
Sydney Observatory ceased astronomical research over 30 years ago when the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences was granted responsibility for the site. It is now a museum of astronomy and a public observatory. The preservation and interpretation of astronomical heritage continues with the return of the Astrographic Catalogue collection of glass plate negatives and associated records and funding received to reinstall the Harley Wood dome. A new digital planetarium is now in regular use, major astronomical events have been webcast and the Observatory continues to interact with the public through social media. A daytime school program in meteorology has been introduced and one in indigenous studies, including indigenous astronomy, is in preparation.
Researching the past for the future
On 8 June 1982 the NSW State Premier wrote to the Government Astronomer proposing that the Observatory become part of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences to “maximise public accessibility” and to “explain the nature and value of astronomy to the public”.
Initially, the heritage instruments were removed and interactive astronomy exhibits installed. In 1997 a new exhibit ‘By the light of the Southern Stars’ heralded the return of the heritage context. Three key historic objects, the 1874 29-cm refractor telescope, the transit telescope and the time ball, were conserved and returned to their original locations. These are either operating or have been restored and carefully interpreted. Indigenous astronomy is intrinsic to the heritage exhibition.
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Visitor attendance at Sydney Observatory 1983 to 2013
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visitor engagement
Today Sydney Observatory reaches well over 175,000 on-site visitors per year. Over 50,000 people view the day and night sky annually through modern and historic telescopes. Strong growth now sees over 20,000 school children interact with astronomy, meteorology, archaeology and indigenous programs. Each week over 12,000 website interactions with social media occur. We have over 7,000 Facebook ‘likes’ and some Facebook and Twitter entries are viewed and shared by tens of thousands. We webcast1 the 2012 total solar eclipse from Mt Molloy in northern Queensland. A new Digitarium Zeta digital planetarium was installed in May 2013 under a custom-made fabric dome designed locally by Vert Design.
Over the last 30 years there has been a dramatic increase in the usage and visitation of Sydney Observatory by the public. Many actions and events have contributed to this achievement, but the return of significant heritage and scientific artefacts has clearly been a key factor.
Original 1858 timeball still dropped daily at 1pm.
An impression of the new Harley Wood dome to be built at Sydney Observatory. Courtesy of Angus Donald/ Government Architect’s Office, 2008.
heritage on-line
You can view Sydney Observatory’s collection on-line.2 Public research of the collection has already recovered a magnetic dip needle,3 used at Governor Brisbane’s Paramatta Observatory, whose provenance had been lost. The Observatory’s Astronomy blog4 is one of Australia’s most popular and includes heritage content and a daily Cosmobite. Scientific Sydney, an iPhone app developed by Powerhouse Web services, is a self-guided walking tour connecting Sydney Observatory with related heritage sites. Lomb’s Transit of Venus: 1631 to the present, available in print and as an ebook, has been favourably reviewed world-wide.
bringing the collection home
Being part of the Powerhouse Museum (the main part of the Museum of applied Arts and Sciences) has made possible the preservation and presentation of the collection and there is a renewed emphasis on the return of significant heritage artefacts. The Observatory’s collection of 20,000 astronomical glass plate negatives has been returned from Macquarie University, where they were relocated into the care of Alan Vaughan in the 1980’s for safe-keeping and research. This collection includes plates from the Astrographic Catalogue, Carte du Ciel and Sydney Southern Star Catalogue projects.
Preservation and conservation
The instruments are maintained and preserved by conservation specialists. Working closely with NSW Department of Design and Heritage over the past thirty years has resulted in stabilization, restoration and repair of this highly significant State Heritage listed site.
latest news: harley Wood dome to be reinstalled
In 1952 Harley Wood had a new dome built to house the Melbourne astrograph. This was removed in 1986 and the dome given to Macquarie University. Funding has now been secured through the Department of Family and Community Services, Ageing, Disability and Home Care NSW for a new structure to be topped with Wood’s original dome. The design is by Angus Donald, Government Architect’s Office. This will make the telescope dome experience accessible for those unable to climb stairs. Exhibition space to display the Astrographic Catalogue collection and the Melbourne astrograph is included. The project has the full support of Heritage NSW and the City of Sydney.
Web sites
1. http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2012/the-sydney-observatory-november-2012-total-solar-eclipse-video/2. http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/search_tags.php?tag=sydney+observatory3. http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2009/historic-parramatta-observatory-instrument-discovered-
through-citizen-science/4. http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/observations-blog/
FIGURE 1: VISITOR ATTENDANCE AT SYDNEY OBSERVATORY 1983 TO 2013
During the 2009 International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) there was a complete change in the marketing approach to Sydney Observatory as a unique offer, separate to the Powerhouse Museum. As can be seen in Figure 1 there have been rises and falls but the overall trend is up. After the IYA2009 there was a plateau and then only slight dip in attendances, which has now been more than recovered. It is a normal trend for a dip after a rise and, as depicted by Figure 1, after each astronomical event such as Halley’s Comet, Mars and the transit of Venus in 2004, the dip closely mirrors the rise. What is different about the rise in attendances in 1997 and 2009 is that the rise has been substantially sustained. This is arguably because the intrinsic nature of how the public perceived the offer, as well as the offer itself, was changed. Whilst in 1997 there was a new permanent gallery to promote, in 2009 it was the implementation of Sydney Observatory as a unique brand and a new approach to its on-‐line offer and social media presence, which made the difference. Over 182,000 visited Sydney Observatory in the 2012-‐13 financial year. This was the highest attendance ever.
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FIGURE 2: SYDNEY OBSERVATORY WEBSITE TRAFFIC OVER A THREE YEAR PERIOD
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An award-‐winning marketing campaign was launched in 2012 themed around the Carl Sagan quote ‘we are all made of stardust’. Figure 3 is the design for ‘Your father is Red Giant -‐ we are all made of stardust’ campaign2 promoted Sydney Observatory as an organisation interested in conversations with visitors about contemporary astronomy and ideas. Increased marketing support for Sydney Observatory contributed to increased awareness, web traffic and consistently strong visitation results from 2009-‐13. Figure 2 shows website traffic to www.sydneyobservatory.com over a three-‐year period. The astronomical highlights are easy to recognise by the peaks and the most noticeable peak was during the 2012 transit of Venus. This graph indicates slowly increasing attendances. It also shows a reliance on astronomical events to stimulate website visits.
FIGURE 3: YOUR FATHER IS A RED GIANT CAMPAIGN, POWERHOUSE MARKETING, DESIGN BY RAY LEGGOTT
THE COLLECTION INCLUDES STARS AND PLANETS A qualitative visitor study in 2006 by market research agency Colmar Brunton3 revealed that Sydney Observatory visitors and potential visitors were drawn to its ‘objects’. These ‘objects’ were identified through this study as not only what you viewed in glass showcases; they were also what you viewed through the glass lens of the telescope. We now consider the planets, stars, galaxies, the Sun and Moon as part of Sydney Observatory’s ‘collection’ and they had to be protected. So far this protection has included providing information about light pollution for development proposals as well as presenting information about the sight lines from the telescope domes when there are development and building proposals. We consider the objects in the night sky are an important part of Sydney Observatory’s museum.
Together with the Powerhouse Museum web and marketing teams we explored how technology had given us options in the way we interpret our ‘collection’. These choices include social media, live streaming and an astronomy blog. It is about understanding the human condition, not just putting facts and figures out in the public sphere. We will now examine how we have approached on-‐line technology solutions in more detail.
TECHNOLOGY-‐ IT'S A HUMAN THING In 2013 a TEDx series of talks were presented live on-‐line from the Sydney Opera House. TEDx is a series of short talks that follow a simple format and are ‘curated’ into themes. One of us (TS) was listening to and watching Alice Gorman talk about space archaeology4 and the debris floating out in Space called ‘Space junk’. Alice was presenting topics of interest to museums: interpretation, collection policy and heritage decisions. Apart from the 2,000 strong audience in the Opera House, over 384,000 people had subscribed to watch TEDx Sydney talks on-‐line. There were more than 700 people logged on when TS was watching via a mobile phone whilst on a harbour beach.
However these numbers pale when compared to the most popular on-‐line Sydney TEDx talk for 2013. ‘Beatbox Brilliance’ by Tom Thum5, which has had 7.5million views (as at 2 November 2013). This presentation, performed within a very personal narrative, reinforces that audiences are compelled by
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human stories and personal attributes. Incorporating the human element is an important part of our thinking about live feeds, social media and the astronomy blog.
LIVE FEEDS – PREPARATION AND TRIAL Hosting live feeds, making connections possible between media carriers through a telescope and using the internet to transmit live events from unusual places is a challenge even for the professionals6. The challenge is even more so when it is not your core business and your resources are very limited.
In 2012, the planet Venus transited the Sun. This is a rare astronomical event, which will not occur again until 2117. Sydney was an ideal place to view the transit, and there was a local and global demand for live streaming footage. The issue we faced was whether the Museum website could handle the web traffic on the day. There were horror stories from those who attempted live feeds of the 2004 transit on their websites. Perth Observatory’s live transit feed almost took down the entire Western Australian Government Internet connection and at Madrid University the website and network did collapse due to the high demand. Live feeds are not for the fainthearted and so we began working on a solution well before.
We prepared for the 2012 transit of Venus by involving the Powerhouse Museum IT and Audio Visual departments to transmit a live feed six months prior. Ninemsn were our media carrier for this trial. Our aim was to transmit a total lunar eclipse, which occurred from 23.45 on 10 December to 01:06 on 11 December in 2011. The telescope, which had a motorised mount, had a video camera fitted to the eyepiece, and a feed from the camera into a computer, the signal was picked-‐up by Ninemsn technicians who transmitted the image on their website.
The response was incredible, 27,000 views of the live stream and 5,000 Facebook logins via Ninemsn. ‘An unprecedented number of views for midnight’ said Hal Crawford of Ninemsn. Table 2 shows that on Sydney Observatory’s website there was also a small rise in on-‐line visitors for November and December 2011, although the Lunar Eclipse was only streamed on the Ninemsn website. The link to the live feed was posted on Sydney Observatory’s website and promoted via Twitter and Facebook. Although the feed was clear, there were some aspects we were not happy about. These were the shape of the Moon, which appeared as an oval rather than a circle, and the colour of the Moon. We decided we wanted to also transmit the image on the Sydney Observatory website in future to maximise our exposure and optimise public awareness of the website and our public offer.
FIGURES 4 & 5: VENUS TRANSITS SUN: (LEFT) PHOTOGRAPH © GEOFF WYATT (RIGHT) SCREEN SHOT, NINEMSN
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Six months later, by the day of the transit of Venus on 6 June 2012, we knew better what equipment we needed and how to get a more satisfying image, we thought. You can see Geoff Wyatt’s image of the transit of Venus as imaged through a H-‐alpha filter telescope in Figure 4 and how it appeared as a live feed on Ninemsn in Figure 5. Due to occasional clouds the media company had other feeds coming through.
Over 500,000 people viewed the coverage of the transit of Venus from Sydney Observatory’s telescope in the North dome via Ninemsn and on Sydney Observatory’s website. The impact of the transit of Venus live feeds on the number of visits to www.sydneyobservatory.com are clearly visible as charted in Figure 2. Tipping over 100,000 you can see that the transit of Venus had the most impact on the www.sydneyobservatory.com website visitor numbers over a three year period and, we can safely claim, the greatest impact on the website figures to date. In partnership with the Australian National Maritime Museum a live feed from Lord Howe Island via satellite had also been attempted, not so successfully. At Lord Howe Island the image left the telescope and hit the satellite but there were problems back on Earth.
Had Sydney Observatory tried to go it alone our Museum website would have crashed. Had we paid for an extension of the website access on a per user basis we could have consumed our annual budget. Had we only had one camera in one location we may have completely failed.
LIVE FEEDS -‐ BEING AT THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME. The next big event was a total Solar Eclipse in North Queensland on 14 November 2012. Figure 6 shows the spectacular view of the solar corona, which is visible only during the short period of totality. This expedition posed new challenges because the live feed was not coming from a telescope at Sydney Observatory, it was from a roadside in a remote Northern Queensland location, a long way from the IT and Audio Visual assistance previously available.
FIGURE 6: TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE QUEENSLAND 2012, PHOTOGRAPH ©TONER STEVENSON
For a third time we began negotiations with Ninemsn and two options were discussed for the technology:
1. Use a link truck to get signal out. Use a Ch9 (or WIN or NBN) camera mounted on Observatory mount with Observatory sun-‐tracker.
2. Use Observatory camera mounted on Observatory mount with Observatory sun-‐tracker and upload images to Internet via local Telstra 3G.
At the last minute Ninemsn joined forces with another astronomy group who were staying on the coast for the Eclipse. This left us with option (2). Sydney Observatory had planned to view the eclipse on the coast but
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the weather reports indicated that a thick band of cloud on the coast could obscure the eclipse and that inland would be better. As it turned out the inland location was perfect.
Curator Dr Andrew Jacob camped overnight at Mt Molloy, which is approximately 25 km as the crow flies and 55km by road up in the hills, West South West of Port Douglas as seen in Figure 7. The location lay in the path of the eclipse and was the furthest most point away from the thick coastal cloud but where Andrew could still get a 3G signal. The image of the eclipse was achieved by fitting a video camera to a portable H-‐Alpha Filter telescope. This was fixed to a motorised mount able to track the sun and this was on a very stable tripod stand. The feed went from the camera into a laptop and was then sent via the Telstra 3G network live onto the Sydney Observatory website and YouTube. Back at the Powerhouse Museum the IT Department were making sure the live image was on the Sydney Observatory website.
Occasionally the website went down due to the number of people who clicked on the link to view7. Andrew’s live stream included the entire eclipse and whilst there was occasional cloud totality was clear. The coast was heavily clouded and only a small proportion of the eclipse was visible on the News Reports and they completely missed the ‘Diamond Ring’ effect, which Andrew managed to perfectly capture. The interesting thing is that the image of the event is very much enhanced by the sound track of the excited watchers and Andrew’s commentary in which he answers questions and advisers the gathering around him as to when they can safely look at the totally eclipsed Sun.
FIGURE 7: ANDREW JACOB WITH THE LIVE FEED SOLAR ECLIPSE SETUP. PHOTOGRAPH © TONER STEVENSON
The live feed of the Solar Eclipse was being picked up back at Sydney Observatory where two hundred early morning visitors were watching the projected image in lieu of experiencing a partial solar eclipse because of the rain. The video of the Solar Eclipse is exclusively Powerhouse Museum property. It has been edited into a short YouTube segment by Powerhouse digital content producer, Felix Warmouth, and is now an important addition to the Museum’s digital collection.
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We have learnt from our live feed experiences that there are plusses and minuses about ownership of the transmission and its content. Sydney Observatory also writes and posts its own Twitter, Facebook and Blog content, managing comments and feedback. We will now describe some of our experiences.
TWITTER : LETTING OTHERS DO YOUR WORK FOR YOU Sydney Observatory’s Twitter account has a growing list of followers but, what is more important, is that the followers represent a defined target audience of leaders in their social or professional group, have a good number of followers themselves, and are engaged in topics relating to astronomy and the physical sciences. But it is advantageous to let others do the Tweeting and Facebook entries directly if they are experiencing an event at your site.
During major events at Sydney Observatory our participants can attach their android or smart phone to an eyepiece and take their own photograph. The specially adapted Geoff Wyatt designed VuVu Venus, as seen in Figure 8, offers a very easy way to view daytime astronomical events safely with a mini-‐back projection screen fitted to the eyepiece of a telescope which has a Solar filter. This enabled people who attended the event to take images and Tweet or Facebook them. By posting images to Twitter taken using both those methods my very amateur mobile phone images of the transit of Venus and a partial Solar eclipse were picked up and featured on-‐line by newspapers around the globe.
By involving people and organisations that have mass following you can get others to reach the audience for you. On 10 May well-‐known science communicator Dr Karl Kruszelnicki and news crew attended the partial solar eclipse. @DrKarl tweeted to over 185,000 followers. In March this year, during Earth Hour @Earth Hour retweeted my mobile phone photograph of Sydney with some of its lights off to over 100,000 followers.
We are careful to abide by the Twitter rules and include #trends when suitable to maximise exposure and the potential for others to know you are tweeting. The Sydney Observatory staff’s experience is that good
FIGURE 8: THE VUVU VENUS AND AN IMAGE OF ‘FIRST CONTACT’ TAKEN DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS IN 2012. PHOTOGRAPH ©TONER STEVENSON
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questions are asked through social media and that it does not take much time to engage with audiences, nor to answer any queries.
FACEBOOK : THE HIGH ACHIEVER. Sydney Observatory’s experience with Facebook is a story of looking not only at how many people who are regular ‘friends’ but how often they look at the Facebook page and send our links to their friends.
Regularly 5,000 to 8,000 people see what is happening on Sydney Observatory’s Facebook page. The entry may be an image of a new moon with Jupiter or a spectacular event such as a solar eclipse. Even though Sydney Observatory has around 8,000 Facebook direct ‘likes’, almost 50,000 people saw and liked Sydney Observatory’s Facebook page during the partial Solar Eclipse, which occurred on 10 May 2013 due to friends sending the link to other friends, spreading the word.
Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms are powerful but require a solid content base to link to. We will now relate how Sydney Observatory has been developing new content on blogs, podcasts and apps.
BLOGS AND PODCASTS Blogs are a well-‐honed interpretation media in most Museums, and a method used by Sydney Observatory community to post astronomy and heritage content in more depth than can be achieved on Facebook or Twitter. Once linked to Facebook and Twitter accounts the astronomy blog adds considerable depth of content and provides a platform for discussion and publishing research.
Sydney Observatory’s astronomy blog was instigated by Powerhouse Media Manager Seb Chan, and launched on 21 June 2006. The first blog was about light pollution and posted by astronomy curator Nick Lomb. Nick is the Museum’s most prolific blogger, having posted well over a thousand blogs in the six years following. The blog site has grown substantially with contributions from other authors such as the affiliated societies. Every day a ‘Cosmobite’ or major article is published. Regular features are a monthly sky guide and podcast.
The night sky podcasts are recorded observations by Sydney Observatory education staff recorded and edited by Powerhouse Museum microsite producer, Irma Havlicek. There are monthly maps, which are tailored to suit each podcast designed in-‐house by Dr Martin Anderson. These are downloadable and provide an easy to use map of the night sky.
During night tours at Sydney Observatory we are able to show people how to navigate around the visible sky, then what that sky looks like in radio wave frequency, which removes the ‘dust’ and is how many researchers view our Universe. Conclusion
To date Sydney Observatory has used on-‐line technology to provide content to a broad audience and answer questions from a small number of individuals. We have only tinkered with citizen science but this paper would be negligent not to include engagement with on-‐line citizen science site as part of the technology mix.
CITIZEN SCIENCE AND LARGE DATA SETS “We are the Zooniverse, the world's most awesome and successful citizen science organisation. Ask us anything!”8 These claims on reddit (November 2013) are true. The Zooniverse9 is a suite of citizen science projects where volunteer on-‐line participants identify the morphology of phenomenon such as galaxies. The Galaxy Zoo site went live in 2007 and it is now just one project within the Zooniverse.
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According to Caren Cooper, a Research Associate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, people participating in Zooniverse projects are deeply involved in the first stage of real science (2013) 10. Cooper, who uses citizen science in her study of birds, argued that science is a collective process and that the stereotype idea of a single scientist making a ‘discovery’ is a false premise, particularly in contemporary science where large datasets are required to identify phenomenon and trends.
There are projects where the Powerhouse Museum has engaged on-‐line volunteers to identify and add content to photographs within the collection but Sydney Observatory does not have a citizen science program of its own. Instead the Zooniverse is promoted on Sydney Observatory’s website.
KEEPING THE WEB IN TACT There are a few simple ideas, which have been adopted at Sydney Observatory to ensure the media presence is maintained and effective. The staff have been prepared to get out of the office, work unusual hours on occasion and embrace different work methods. Individuals have taken responsibility for specific areas and instigated new strategies, such as Nick Lomb’s daily ‘Cosmobite’. Planning, discussion and collaboration has been important.
Relevant staff members spend a maximum of fifteen minutes a day, every day, on Twitter and Facebook posts, although the thinking about them may happen at any time and any staff member can contribute posts. Images are included wherever and whenever possible. The writers try to be personable, have a sense of humour and respond to questions and interactions, and, finally, we check accuracy, acknowledge all sources and double-‐check spelling and grammar. It has been acknowledged that we are all publishers, no matter how short the post or which web-‐based platform is the host. When required the technology experts have been called, but we have also tried to stay as independent as possible and increase the Observatory’s capabilities in the technology required for live feeds and all other aspects of the on-‐line content.
CONCLUSION In this paper we have examined Sydney Observatory’s modest but eventful journey into social and on-‐line media. We have argued that by streaming astronomical events live on-‐line and collaborating with other organisations Sydney Observatory has re-‐enforced its position as a place where timely content about astronomy, especially relevant to an Australian audience, can be found. The live on-‐line streaming of astronomical events has also substantiated that Sydney Observatory’s collection includes the stars, planets and other astronomical phenomenon as well as technology and heritage artefacts and buildings.
The astronomy blog site, the monthly podcast of the night sky, Facebook and Twitter posts have been presented as offering a continuum of information and engagement for virtual visitors. Links to citizen science projects developed by others have been presented as offering experiences not able to be developed within our own resources and capability.
Our experience has substantiated that an on-‐line presence can be developed and enhanced with minimal resources. There has been no increase in staff numbers or lessening of other duties at Sydney Observatory to achieve a relatively strong presence on-‐line and manage what was once peripheral, but is now core business. The expertise provided by the wider Powerhouse Museum Digital Imaging and IT Departments has been vital, but the web-‐based projects have all relied on the content and continuity provided by a handful of observatory staff.
Much less is known about the on-‐line visitors than the ones who step over the heritage Sydney Observatory threshold. But we do know that on-‐line and on-‐site visitor experiences are tangibly linked through the text
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and images, which are posted on social media. Social Media, which was once the domain of the few, has now become the norm for the privileged view.
NOTES AND LINKS 1 This paper is derived from a presentation delivered at the Museums Australia Conference, May 2013, in Canberra. 2 The Red Giant campaign, developed by the Powerhouse Museum’s marketing team for Sydney Observatory and designed by the Wood Agency, won bronze in the 2013 International Design and Communication Awards (IDCA) in the ‘Best Exhibition Communication’ category. This award recognises the best marketing and communications talent within the museum world. 3 Colmar Brunton are an Australian Market research agency who were commissioned to research the market segments for Sydney Observatory and the Powerhosue Museum in 2006 using qualitative and quantitative research methods. Their report is held by the Powerhouse Museum Research Library. 4 http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Space-‐Archaeology-‐Alice-‐Gorman 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNZBSZD16cY 6 On 3 November 2013 a Hybrid Solar eclipse in Africa was to be streamed live from Slooh Telescope to websites and television stations around the World. Just prior to totality a dust storm swept the area and the equipment had to be put into a tent so there was no live feed, but what we did see was astronomer Paul Cox, who was very anxious when clouds almost obscured the eclipse, but elated when he could actually view it. http://events.slooh.com/stadium/total-‐solar-‐eclipse-‐highlight-‐paul-‐cox 7 http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/2012/the-‐sydney-‐observatory-‐november-‐2012-‐total-‐solar-‐eclipse-‐video/ 8http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1pvge6/we_are_the_zooniverse_the_worlds_most_awesome_and/ 9 https://www.zooniverse.org/ 10 http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-‐blog/2013/02/28/pearls-‐across-‐the-‐zooniverse-‐when-‐crowdsourcing-‐becomes-‐citizen-‐science/
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