Not so long ago, astronomy was much slower. Events were communicated by word of mouth or snail mail. The 1987 supernova was briefly mentioned on the evening news, but details followed only much later when I got through to Skyline’s recorded phone message. Around the same time, I subscribed to postcard updates from the Comet Rapid Announcement Service. John Bortle's monthly Comet Digest column in Sky&Telescope was usually out-of-date by the time it arrived in my mailbox.

Email, newsgroups, Gopher, browsers and the web have changed all that. Last month, amateurs learned of Comet Holmes’ tremendous outburst and went out to observe it that very evening. Hundreds, if not thousands, of sites are dedicated to astronomy news, planning observing, and selling products and equipment. And more changes are on the way.

You’ll be hearing plenty about Web 2.0. Most of the web at present consists of static pages or web-as-information services, provided by a limited number of tech-savvy or commercial sources. In contrast, Web 2.0 content is user-generated, organized on-line and retrievable for an indefinite time. It has developed beyond bulletin boards, newsgroups and discussion groups like Yahoo! with a much stronger emphasis on collaboration and social networking. Software advances have enhanced the accessibility and longevity of this user generated content, enhancing its value. Beyond that, Web 2.0 is hard to define, but it includes services you’ve surely used as well as some you probably haven’t.

Star gazers blog about their observing and hobby experiences, and this is a perfect example of Web 2.0 support of user-generated content. Astro-photo sharing on Flickr is another. Interactive web applications for producing custom charts or analyzing astrophotos qualify as well. Podcasts and mashups can likewise. Social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us don’t appear to have been used much for astronomical purposes, but it seems there is great potential there.

Wikis are very Web 2.0. A wiki (from Hawaiian, wiki wiki, for quick or rapid) is an easily editable and searchable document consisting of hierarchically organized and tagged pages containing text-based information, graphics and links to sites, multimedia and other electronic resources. Wikipedia is the most well-known example, and despite the hand-wringing over reliability, it is a great resource for many technical matters. Most anyone can edit Wikipedia entries, and many ISP’s allow you to host your own wiki using MediaWiki, the same software that powers Wikipedia. Alternatively, you can use a free web-based version for online collaboration, or even re-purpose the wiki into a personal notebook. Oddly named, TiddlyWiki is a wiki in a single web page that is editable and customizable all from a web browser and requiring no installation. Although navigation is somewhat different, accomplished by opening and closing tiddlers rather than linking pages, it is very efficient for locating information in a nonlinear fashion.

To what uses could star gazers put wikis? They could replace an observer’s notebook: the observations would be tiddlers, which would be tagged by object, instrument, and constellation or just about anything else. They could be used to collaboratively develop meeting agenda or even coordinate star party tasks. A wiki would be ideal for preparing a group presentation: capturing ideas, useful links, images and graphics, and ultimately linking to the final presentation and speaker’s notes, all in one place. There are many other educational applications, organizing classes in telescope making, keeping notes on astrophoto projects, even behind the scenes management of a conventional club web site. 

Today, astronomy advances almost too quickly to stay informed, despite dedicated web sites, Google searches, RSS feeds and blog aggregating “planets”. Web 2.0 tools like wikis, social bookmarking and photo sharing are sure to contribute to amateur and professional astronomy over many years to come.

Many thanks to Ryan Dale for introducing me to TiddlyWikis.  Moondark is written by Doug Miller, published at the Moondark web site, and printed in the Delmarva Star Gazers' Star Gazer News. This document was last revised on 25 November 2007. Text and images on this web page are free for non-commercial use with attribution under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial 3.0 License. Ask Doug about other uses.