Astronomy Outreach in the South Pacific
Christian Veillet
Why?
While posted on the Island of Hawai'i as an astronomer with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), I traveled in many places, talking about the observatory to its users in many venues, using every opportunity to make CFHT known and to share with the public or with students our knowledge of the universe, from Earth's neighborhood to remote galaxies.
When the International Year of Astronomy came in 2009, I realized that I had actually never made a presentation about CFHT in French outside of France and Québec. CFHT, one of the French TGIR (Très Grandes Infrastructures de Recherche), is the only French presence dealing with astronomical research in the Pacific, an ocean with many French territories! IAY2009 was therefore a unique opportunity for CFHT to propose outreach activities in some of these territories.
The first outreach tour was proposed to French Polynesia through two associations: Proscience and SAT, the Société Astronomique de Tahiti. It was targeted to Tahiti and a few islands in the Leeward and Austral islands groups (Raiatea, Tubuai, and Rurutu). Two well-organized and very busy weeks led to seven public conferences and the visit of more than a dozen of schools, reaching 700 students in middle and high schools and 200 in elementary schools. You will find information about it here.
The second voyage will take place around the 2012 transit of Venus, again in collaboration with SAT and Proscience. An eight day tour of the Marquesas Islands will allow the observation of the transit of Venus from Nuku Hiva as part of the Venus-TEx network, as well as school visits and public conferences on Nuku Hiva, Hiva Oa, Ua Pou, and Ua Huka. More will be done on Tahiti with perhaps a short stay on another of the Austral Islands not visited in 2009.
