What intially started as an attempt to form a Celestial Bridge between
Indo-Iraq-Brazil has now turned out to be a global affair. A group of sidewalk
astronomers from about 16 countries are having a sort of an informal
activity of observation of the Lunar Planetary conjunction of Venus and Moon
on the 28th February this year. This event has been named Beauty Without Borders
... an evening with Venus. Sidewalk astronomers from more countries are
likely to join eventually.

Details of the program is available at the following link

http://beautywithoutborders.blogspot.com/

This news has already featured in the Cosmic Diary, Sidewalk Astronomy
Newsletters and various other sites. It has attracted a lot of media attention
in New Zealand, Japan, Kurdistan, Pakistan, Dubai, Honduras, Brazil etc. The
excitement for this event seem to surpass that of the earlier "Unofficial
opening ceremony of IYA2009" - Dawn of IYA2009.

By pure coincedence this event also turned out to be the first event of another
international project "And Now I am Galileo" where students try to follow the
path taken by Galileo 400 years ago. This is a Portuguese project.

Various groups plan to webcast this event live on Ustream and other service
providers.

The event is being Coordinated by Azhy Hasan of Kurdistan and Marcelo of Brazil
while the site is being managed by Thilina Heenatigala of Sri Lanka.

This is a joint effort between Astronomers Without Borders and Sidewalk
Astronomers.

Manoj Pai
from the land of Gandhi & Sarabhai