Our January 2009 Sidewalk Astronomy night will be Saturday January 3rd in Monrovia, weather permitting. We'll skip Pasadena on January 2nd due to the proximity of our observing location to Rose Parade route and cleanup, not to mention New Years Eve and Day events and recovery from same. We'll be set up from 6 - 9 p.m. Saturday night. If you wish to join us with your new (or never used) telescope drop us a line ahead of time so we can arrange to meet you earlier for setup. It's not easy to do a new scope setup after dark with a crowd nearby..... Each month during 2009 we'll be celebrating International Year of Astronomy in my 2-minute What's Up podcasts. January 2009 is all about Venus, the featured NASA IYA Celestial object. Here is where you can find the podcast on the JPL site: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm It is also available on You Tube in 2 formats - which are easy to download if you have a slower connection (according to my parents) http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=JPLnews&p=r&page=1 Here is the NASA IYA website: http://astronomy2009.nasa.gov/observe.htm (What's Up isn't there quite yet) Don't forget to have a look at Saturn on New Years Eve! That was the December 2008 What's Up topic, available on both JPL and You Tube, or simplify and get it directly to your iPod via iTunes. :-) Thanks for a great year of public astronomy - we do this to share the wonders of the night sky with you! Jane, Mojo, Dave, Todd K, Caroline, Gary, Elizabeth, Catherine, Tom, Daphne, Katherine, Becky, Todd B, Scott, Ed and Roseann - your Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers: http://www.otastro.org/astronomers/ Jane Houston Jones Senior Outreach Specialist, Cassini Program JPL - 4800 Oak Grove Drive, MS 230-205 Pasadena, CA 91109 818-393-6435 jane.h.jones@jpl.nasa.gov Cassini SOC http://soc.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm What's Up? http://education.jpl.nasa.gov/amateurastronomy/index.html