Next Tuesday is the May General Meeting, and will be held at Regis Hall at 7:30 PM, but in the classroom under the hall we normally use. Our speaker is Dr Michael Ireland from Macquarie University, and the abstract for his talk follows:
Planetary Detection and Precision Astrophysics with (arrays of) Small Telescopes
Most of the big discoveries in astronomy are made with big telescopes. However, there is much to learn about naked-eye stars and their environments. I will describe current research with the SUSI and CHARA optical interferometers, where arrays of 0.1 to 1m telescopes are used to resolve individual stars, and hopefully one day detect the signature of planets using precision astrometry. I will also describe efforts we have begun this year with a spectrograph for the Macquarie University observatory 16″ telescope to detect planets around dying stars.
As usual, visitors are welcome.



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