The "Astronomy On-Line" Project (Abstract)

Volume 35 number 1 (2007)

R. M. West

Abstract

(Abstract only) A major web-based educational program, known as “Astronomy On-Line,” has just taken place in close collaboration among the European Association for Astronomy Education (EAAE), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the European Union. During a period of two months, from early October to late November 1996, a comprehensive network of astronomy-oriented educational web pages was built up at various European sites, including the ESO headquarters in Garching. Throughout this period, astronomy-interested groups of mostly young people from all over Europe registered with “Astronomy On-Line”; in the end, 720 groups with approximately 5,000 participants from 39 countries took part. The “Astronomy On-Line” web site at ESO received up to 100,000 hits per day. All pages were mirrored one per day or more frequently to about twenty-five mirror sites in other European countries. No accurate statistics are available for the number of entries at these sites, but there is little doubt that “Astronomy On-Line” quickly developed into what the organizers early claimed: the world’s biggest astronomy event on the world-wide web.