{"id":8,"date":"2015-03-06T02:02:03","date_gmt":"2015-03-06T07:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/astrofest2007.wordpress.com\/?page_id=8"},"modified":"2016-03-04T00:06:01","modified_gmt":"2016-03-04T05:06:01","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Because SAO is a fully online program, participants either never or very rarely get to actually meet each other or their instructors. It had been suggested for some time that SAO should organise a series of face-to-face gatherings in various countries around the world so that the SAO community could\u00a0come together and meet each other! Hence &#8220;AstroFest&#8221; was born.\u00a0SAO was delighted to host\u00a0its inaugural AstroFest in Texas, USA, from 12-14 October 2007. AstroFest 2007 was\u00a0open to the entire SAO community &#8211; alumni, students and instructors.<\/p>\n<p>The inaugural AstroFest 2007 was\u00a0held in Quanah, Texas, USA. Why Texas you ask? Because the very generous folk of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.3rf.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Three Rivers Foundation<\/a>\u00a0offered us the use of their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.3rf.org\/sciences-2\/astronomy\" target=\"_blank\">Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus<\/a>, a 50 acre dark sky site located about 15 miles west of Crowell, Texas. Comanche Springs hosted a 12.5&#8243; Ritchey-Chretien, an 8&#8243; refractor, a 22&#8243; binocular telescope, a bunch of Obsession Dobs (15&#8243;, 18&#8243;, 20&#8243;, 25&#8243; and 30&#8243;), as well as filters and CCD cameras etc.<\/p>\n<p>AstroFest 2007 included a series of astronomy lectures, hands-on demonstrations and night observing, as well as a chance for SAO alumni and students to present their own research results.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_59\" style=\"width: 608px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-59\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-59\" src=\"http:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/09\/mosaic.png\" alt=\"Mosaic of the Texas flag composed from astronomy images\" width=\"598\" height=\"454\" srcset=\"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/09\/mosaic.png 598w, https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/09\/mosaic-300x228.png 300w, https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/09\/mosaic-501x380.png 501w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 598px) 100vw, 598px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-59\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mosaic of the Texas flag composed from astronomy images<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Because SAO is a fully online program, participants either never or very rarely get to actually meet each other or their instructors. It had been suggested for some time that SAO should organise a series of face-to-face gatherings in various countries around the world so that the SAO community could\u00a0come together and meet each other! &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\"><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/full-width-page.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8\/revisions\/115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}