{"id":20,"date":"2015-02-24T11:07:09","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T16:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/astrofest2015.wordpress.com\/?page_id=20"},"modified":"2015-09-04T03:00:55","modified_gmt":"2015-09-04T07:00:55","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #f25f70;\"><strong>AstroFest 2015<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #f25f70;\">WHAT:<\/span><\/strong> A long weekend of astronomy lectures, hands-on astronomy sessions, star gazing, cultural events, and a visit to the Keck Observatory and the Subaru Observatory on the summit of Mauna Kea, run by Swinburne Astronomy Online in conjunction with the Centre for Astrophysics &amp; Supercomputing at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #f25f70;\"><strong>WHEN:<\/strong><\/span> Saturday 15 August &#8211; Monday 17 August 2015<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #f25f70;\"><strong>WHERE:<\/strong><\/span> The Big Island, Hawaii<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #f25f70;\">BACKGROUND:<\/span><\/strong> Being a\u00a0fully online program, Swinburne Astronomy Online (SAO)\u00a0participants either never or very rarely get to actually meet each other or their instructors. It was therefore suggested 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 \u201cAstroFest\u201d was born &#8211; an event open to the entire SAO community, including alumni, students and instructors.\u00a0SAO held its inaugural AstroFest in Texas, USA, in\u00a0October 2007.<\/p>\n<p>Given the success of <a href=\"http:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2007\/\" target=\"_blank\">AstroFest 2007 <\/a>and the continued desire to connect members of the SAO community, SAO hosted its second AstroFest in August 2015. It included\u00a0a series of astronomy lectures, hands-on demonstrations,\u00a0night observing, and social events where participants shared their interests in all things astronomy!<\/p>\n<p>AstroFest 2015\u00a0was held in Hawaii to\u00a0allow participants to benefit from the close ties between Swinburne University of Technology and the M. W. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea,\u00a0one of the world&#8217;s premier optical observing sites. In 2008, Swinburne University of Technology signed an historic agreement with California University of Technology, giving Swinburne&#8217;s astronomers unprecedented access to the twin 10-metre Keck optical telescopes. \u00a0AstroFest 2015\u00a0was held at Waikoloa, with a summit visit on Monday 17th August.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/02\/Hawaii-location.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-71\" src=\"http:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/02\/Hawaii-location.png\" alt=\"Hawaii location\" width=\"507\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/02\/Hawaii-location.png 914w, https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/02\/Hawaii-location-300x237.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 507px) 100vw, 507px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AstroFest 2015 WHAT: A long weekend of astronomy lectures, hands-on astronomy sessions, star gazing, cultural events, and a visit to the Keck Observatory and the Subaru Observatory on the summit of Mauna Kea, run by Swinburne Astronomy Online in conjunction with the Centre for Astrophysics &amp; Supercomputing at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia WHEN: &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\"><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/full-width-page.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20\/revisions\/265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.swin.edu.au\/sao\/astrofest\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}