On January 6, 2009 at 7:30pm SLT the ‘Astronomy 2009′ island officially opened as part of the USA-node IYA2009 Opening Ceremonies that were taking place live at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Long Beach, CA. Crowds began to gather in our island center for 7pm to hear the official opening ceremonies being broadcast via Voice into Second Life. Our 2009 sponsors, Interstellar Studios, conducted the ribbon cutting which opened up the island for public access. A champagne toast and fireworks followed.

We opened capacity to 60 avatars and were still overflowing. The response to our celebration and island opening was unexpected and amazing! Thank you to everyone who joined us, and the rest of the thousands of avatars who have visited ‘Astronomy 2009′ island over the course of the year.

Opening Ceremony gathering at the island center, listening to the live events from Long Beach, CA.

Daylight view of the Opening Ceremonies, waiting for the ribbon cutting!

Map view showing we were at capacity with on-lookers from Spindrift.

The ribbon, about to be cut!

Post-ribbon cutting fireworks and champagne.

The "heat map" of avatar activity during the first week we were open (provided by Maya Realities). During our first week we saw 185 unique avatars in 304 visits having over 115 hrs of visit time. w00t!

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