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When I started to prepare my message
for this month - I found myself reflecting over
some astronomical activities that I have been involved
with over the past few months. I cannot help but
come to the conclusion that we are incredibly lucky
to be situated in a place that seems overflowing
with astronomical activities and goodies.
This last month I managed to tag
along with Russell Sipe to the 198th American Astronomical
Society meeting in Pasadena. The AAS meets twice
a year - and is the place where many of the most
important discoveries and developments are announced
and discussed. Russell Sipe was attending the meeting
as a member of the press - and I tagged along for
the experience.
In order to gain entry to the event
I had to sign in as the Guest/Spouse of Russ. This
being California - I did not get any weird looks!
While I was there - I managed to
go along with Russ to a press release session by
the new director for the National Optical Astronomy
Observatory (NOAO). Dr Jeremy Mould outlined their
plans for the Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (a
ground telescope with a 30 Meter or more aperture)
and a very interesting Large Aperture Synoptic Survey
Telescope. The LASST certainly caught my attention
- when completed it promised to perform whole sky
surveys within days. One of the challenges is in
the analysis of the huge amounts of data amassed
from this device each week. If you are familiar
with the amount of data analyzed by the SETI project
(which amounts to few Gigabytes per day) - the LASST
promises to be amassing at least an order of magnitude
greater - in the Terabytes.
Click for larger image
My other reason for going to the AAS was to visit
their exhibition hall - where I thought I might
be able to solicit a few new opportunities for speakers
for our monthly meetings.
There were representatives from
many of the companies involved with the biggest
projects out there. I came away with many new contacts
- and lots of information.
The Exhibition hall was also packed
full of posters showing the detailed results that
were being presented at the meeting. I thought you
would like to see just one of the posters that really
caught my eye!
I also attended for the first time
the Openhouse at JPL. I have heard about this event
for some years - but somehow never managed to fit
it into my schedule. For a couple of days - the
JPL opens it's doors to the public. This year they
managed to get around 60,000 visitors.
I was overwhelmed by the sheer
number and quality of the exhibits - which covered
all of the aspects of work that JPL is involved
with. This being my first time there - I learned
a few things that will alter my visit next year.
1) bring a BIG bag for all the goodies and information
you will be picking up 2) give yourself at least
the WHOLE day - or maybe even two full days to experience
everything. I only went for half a day - and I feel
I barely touched the surface of everything that
was available.
For me the thing I came away with
most - was an appreciation for the people of JPL
who are involved with all these projects. The projects
themselves are of course astonishing but somehow
it struck me that the most amazing thing about this
event was that I managed to meet and talk with the
actual people who are doing the work.
DR Thaller
During my trip around JPL I stumbled across a section
called "Ask a scientist a question". DR
Michelle Thaller, JPL Astronomer, Space Infrared
Telescope Facility was answering any of the questions
visitors had about Astronomy. I asked her an unusual
question. I asked DR Thaller if she would be willing
to speak at one of our meetings. I am pleased to
report that we are finalizing the details for her
talk at our August meeting. Look out for further
details of the talk which will be related to Infrared
Astronomy.
We are extremely fortunate to live
in an area absolutely overflowing with astronomical
events such as the ones I have described here. This
also makes it so convenient to get the absolute
best speakers for our monthly meetings. Below is
a preview of what we have lined up up until November
July: DR Mark Colavita, the Keck
Interferometer
August: DR Michelle Thaller (to be confirmed)
September: Our own Chris Butler - the conclusion
of his tour of our corner of the galaxy
October: Leif Robinson (previous Editor-in-chief
of Sky & Tel)
November: Ken Croswell - on his new book.
Are we lucky - or what!
"every day we are connecting ever more photons
of light from distant galaxies to the eyes, hearts,
minds and imaginations of our members and others
in our community."
UPDATE ON SURVEY: As of June 21st - we now have
225 responses. That is a much more respectable response
than the 50 we had this time last month. Thankyou
all!
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