I present the strategy and activities of the public outreach and communication of ALMA in Japan. Since most of the public is not familiar with the radio astronomy, we present the human side of ALMA to attract the public interest, as well as by showing the science results. To evoke the public interest on the radio astronomy, it is also effective to show the radio astronomy research topics on the planets, the Sun, and bright stars so that they can connect the daily night sky with the radio universe explored by ALMA.

The purpose of this research is to know and gain a better understanding of people who come to astronomical observatories and to find out more about their experiences and thoughts on astronomy. To find some of the issues about science communication in astronomy, the author carried out questionnaire research studies involving high school students and junior high school and elementary school teachers.

This article intends to convey the improvement regarding the knowledge exchange in the astronomical field through an improvement in the quality of professional communication between researchers, teachers and the like whose job is to broadcast astronomical concepts. It has been a couple of years since the difficulty of communicating astronomical concepts decreased due to institutional projects, schools and education systems. Inside the education system, the need to include astronomy as an innovative element in curricula has become obvious. Outside, an informal public interested in astronomy became greater in number and began to be fostered by different organizations which spread their astronomical knowledge via workshops and demonstrations.

The Washington Charter for Communicating Astronomy with the Public says that “individuals and organizations that conduct astronomical research - especially those receiving public funding for this research - have a responsibility to communicate their results and efforts with the public for the benefit of all.“ Aside from a sense of obligation, though, there are other reasons why astronomers ought to communicate with the broader citizenry. Among them: it is encouraged by the leaders of government funding agencies, it helps further public recognition and support for science in general and for astronomy in particular, and it can enhance one's career prospects.

As the weakness of russian astronomers in observational astronomy became chronic Russia should enter European Southern Observatory. But the Russian government is still not providing any financing of the entrance of Russia to ESO. The author states this situation as an example of his experience of work as an astronomer and as a journalist at the same time.

Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) are building a global network of telescopes which will be available to both professional scientists and the science curious public. This telescope network will be global and so will the community, therefore all aspects of the endeavour must be online and self-sustaining - from the observing software to the analysis tools. During 2012 LCOGT have deployed the first 1-meter telescopes, and launched a citizen science project using LCOGT data, Agent Exoplanet, as well as many other online resources for anyone to use as they explore astronomy.

Because modern astronomy associates the quest of our origins and high-tech instruments, communicating and teaching astronomy explore both science and technology. We report here on our work in communicating astronomy to the public through Web sites (www.herschel.fr), movies on Dailymotion (www.dailymotion.com/AstrophysiqueTV) and new ITC tools that describe interactively the technological dimension of a space mission for astrophysics.

In this work we present two aspects of the Astronomy education activities carried out in 2012 by a multidisciplinary group at Universidad de Guanajuato, including specialists in Astronomy, Social Sciences and Environmental Engineering. The first program linked the Venus Transit, occurred in June 2012, with a national campaign of vulgarization of both modern and ancient (Mayan) Astronomy. Professional astronomers all around the country took advantage of the recent myth linked to the end of a large Mayan calendar cycle (13 baktuns, or some 5125 years) happening, after certain authors, in December 2012. In Guanajuato, the Astronomy Department organized live observations of the Venus Transit at two different locations, and complemented with conferences about astronomical events and the fake predictions of disasters linked to the “end“ of the Mayan calendar. This program was very successful not only in Guanajuato but throughout the country, with several thousands of people attending live observations, conferences, expositions, etc.

Hinode is a solar observation satellite in Japan and its launch was in September 2006. Its name means “SUNRISE“ in Japanese. It has three instruments onboard in visible light, X-ray, EUV to solve mystery of coronal heating and origins of magnetic fields.

Hinode has been providing us with impressive solar data, which are very important for not only investigating solar phenomena but also giving new knowledge about the sun to the public. In order to efficiently communicate Hinode data to the public, we organized working group for public use of Hinode data. which are composed of both researchers and educators in collaboration. As follow, we introduce our activities in brief.

For the public use of Hinode data, at first, we produced two DVDs introducing Hinode observation results. In particular, second DVD contains a movie for kids, which are devloped to picturebook. Now, it is under producing an illustrated book and a planetarium program. It turn out that the DVDs help the public understand the sun from questionnaire surveys. Second, we developed teaching materials from Hinode data and had a science classroom about the sun, solar observations, practice with PC such as imaging software at junior high school. As the results, they had much interests in Hinode data. Third, we have joint observations with high school students and so on in a few years. The students compare their own data with Hinode data and have a presentation at science contests. The joint observations make their motivation higher in their activities.

It is important to record and report our activities in some ways. So, we positively publish papers and have presentions in domestic/international meetings. Though we are supported in budget, resources and so on by NAOJ Hinode Team, we apply research funds for promoting our EPO activities and acquire some funds such as NAOJ Joint Research Expenses and Grands-Aid for Scientific Research Funds since the launch.

This way, since its launch, we have continued various and constant EPO activities for the public use of Hinode data and have been giving intense impacts and high interest to the public. As the result, our activities contribute in further extension of Hinode Mission. Those are quite unique and would be reference of other similar ones. Hinode is now operating and solar activities might get more higher.

As long as SUN RISE, we would GO FORWARD!!

It is difficult to get a real scale image of the solar system through lecture. A scale model is a classical and one of good solutions (e.g. Handa et al.2003, Handa et al.2008). Through this model, people living in or visiting to the city can physically understand the scale of the solar system. This scale gives 1 cm for Earth's diameter and 115 m for 1 AU. However, some gadget is required to make it attractive for public citizens.

A solar eclipse is one of the most popular events in astronomy. Although it is the single astronomical event, it gives different images from place to place and changes in time. It is the most important message from astronomy to the public that an apparent face depends on the viewpoint and we should get the comprehensive view.

India is a country with a large number of languages which not only differ in scripts but are essentially part of different language families. “Marathi“ is one such Indian regional language spoken by nearly 70 million people and is the native language of the author. Like all major regional languages, there is a strong and vibrant media in Marathi with 45 odd newspapers and 6 television news channels.

Social media is a new trend in communicating and connecting to people. It is also a good choice to build awareness of astronomy as issues spread easily and quickly, creating hot topics. This paper will analyze the trend of astro talk in Indonesia and hope to inspire astronomers to use social media in raising awareness.

The University of Zululand, situated along the east coast of KwaZulu-Natal, has a thriving Science Centre (USC) situated in the developing port city of Richards Bay. Over 30 000 learners visit the centre annually, and it consists of an exhibition area, an auditorium, lecture areas and offices. The shows consist of interactive games, science shows, competitions, quizzes and matriculation workshops. Outreach activities take place through a mobile science centre for schools and communities that cannot visit the centre.

As cities around the world grow more and more diverse, we must take this diversity into account in developing outreach activities and materials. The International Year of Astronomy in 2009 brought a lot of attention to the needs of underserved communities and developing countries, emphasizing the ideal of widespread access to astronomy outreach. Increasingly, however, we find that some of the same challenges facing underserved communities and developing countries are also present in modern metropolises. Conveniently, the linguistic and cultural diversity of our cities is more and more accurately reflected among the astronomy community. The diversity of the astronomical community itself creates opportunities for effective multicultural, multilingual outreach.

Astronomy can be an inspirational gateway to learning science and analytical reasoning, and to careers in STEM fields—particularly important in developing countries where educational opportunities can be scarce. Following this idea and my interest in learning about other cultures, I decided to spend 6 weeks in late 2011 (between Ph.D. and postdoc) doing astronomy public outreach in Guatemala. I volunteered through a Spanish language school embedded in a poor rural community (typical earning ~ $3/day), working mostly with children. My teaching goals were primarily attitudinal: to encourage people to observe and ask questions about the world around them, and to show them that phenomena have explanations that we can understand.

International activities for astronomy began when Mongolia joined the IAU at the General Assembly held in Prague in August 2006, because space scientists, astronomers and researchers in Mongolia are coming to understand that astronomy can help Mongolian socioeconomic development. For instance, astronomy can increase general interest and encourage public engagement in the sciences.

The heritage of astronomy in Australia has proven an effective communication medium. By interpreting science as a social and cultural phenomenon new light is thrown on challenges, such as the dispersal of instruments and problems identifying contemporary astronomy heritage. Astronomers are asked to take note and to consider the communication of astronomy now and in the future through a tangible heritage legacy.

A new paradigm in astronomical research has been emerging – “Data Intensive Astronomy” that utilizes large amounts of data combined with statistical data analyses.

The first research method in astronomy was observations by our eyes. It is well known that the invention of telescope impacted the human view on our Universe (although it was almost limited to the solar system), and lead to Keplerfs law that was later used by Newton to derive his mechanics. Newtonian mechanics then enabled astronomers to provide the theoretical explanation to the motion of the planets. Thus astronomers obtained the second paradigm, theoretical astronomy. Astronomers succeeded to apply various laws of physics to reconcile phenomena in the Universe; e.g., nuclear fusion was found to be the energy source of a star. Theoretical astronomy has been paired with observational astronomy to better understand the background physics in observed phenomena in the Universe. Although theoretical astronomy succeeded to provide good physical explanations qualitatively, it was not easy to have quantitative agreements with observations in the Universe. Since the invention of high-performance computers, however, astronomers succeeded to have the third research method, simulations, to get better agreements with observations. Simulation astronomy developed so rapidly along with the development of computer hardware (CPUs, GPUs, memories, storage systems, networks, and others) and simulation codes.

A brief history is given of wide area optical surveys of galaxies and resulting catalogs, starting from the Shapley-Ames Catalog through POSS and CfA surveys to modern surveys. Scientific impacts of large surveys are described in terms of the complete sample, large homogeneous samples, and new discoveries. Upcoming and future ambitious surveys are also mentioned. A recent review of surveys in various wavelength regions is given by Djorgovski et al. (2012).