Northern Sydney Astronomical Society » Uncategorized

NSAS Events for August

bobsastro — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 03:27:23 +0000

In August, the first NSAS event is the Theory Group on Tuesday the 10th, where this dedicated group will see further lectures in the series “Understanding the Universe”. The August General Meeting is on Tuesday the 17th, and the guest speaker is Orsola De Marco, Associate Professor of Physics at Macquarie U. She will present a talk on the subject “Planetary Nebulae: death shrouds of lonely stars or aftermath of binary interactions?”. See the separate post for an abstract. The New Astronomers Group meets Tuesday the 24th, and after the big turnout in July, we suggest anyone with a scope who has questions on how to set it up, use it, or observe, come along. All meetings are at St. Ignatius at 7:30PM.

NAG meeting this Tuesday the 27th

bobsastro — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 04:44:31 +0000

The New Astron0mers Group will meet this Tuesday the 27th at 7:30 at St. Ignatius. The weather is a bit iffy, so the planned outdoor demonstration of DSLR astrophotography may have to be done inside! Roy Jordan will have his usual presentation on whats to see this August.

July General Meeting Tuesday the 20th

bobsastro — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 07:39:37 +0000

The NSAS July GM will be Tuesday the 20th at 7:30, St. Ignatius. The speaker is our own Bob Roeth, who will speak about the growth of the Copernican view of the universe.

Observing for July

bobsastro — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 11:14:04 +0000

The nominated observing nights are the Fridays 9 and 16th, with the following Saturdays as backup for bad weather. If you are on the Observers list, you will get an email and/or SMS on the afternoon of the day to confirm whether Observing is on or off. If you are not on the list, check this website around 4 PM to confirm whether Observing is on or off.

NSAS Events for July

bobsastro — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 09:46:49 +0000

We start out July at NSAS with the Theory Group on Tuesday the 13th, 7:30. The lectures from Alex Filippenko’s “Understanding the Universe” are: “On the Shoulders of Giants”, and “Surveying Space and Time”. On Tuesday the 20th, 7:30, the July General Meeting will take place. Our speaker this month is Bob Roeth, NSAS Vice-president, who will speak on “Kepler: from Aristotle to Copernicus”. Bob, as some of you will know, is an excellent speaker. The New Astronomers Group has re-formed after a break, and this m0nth will meet on Tuesday the 27th, 7:30, with a program related to astrophotography, but anyone with a scope needing help, please bring it along. As usual, all meetings are open to visitors. Contact NSAS via email or mobile phone for more details.

NSAS Events for June

bobsastro — Fri, 28 May 2010 10:09:54 +0000

NSAS starts out in June with the Theory Group on Tuesday night the 8th. The lectures this month are ” Galileo and the Copernican Revolution”, and “Refinements to the Heliocentric Model”. On Tuesday the 15th is the June General Meeting. The speaker this month is George Hobbs of CSIRO and ANTF, who will speak on “Pulsars and Gravitational Waves”. “Observations of millisecond pulsars may provide the first means to detect the elusive gravitational waves that are predicted by General Relativity. If these waves are detected then we’ll have a means to study supermassive black hole binary systems and even probe the universe less than a second after the big bang. The Parkes telescope in Australia is providing the World-leading data sets for this search. I will describe our project, explain how pulsars are discovered and observed and how, using the pulsar observations, we will hopefully be able to detect gravitational waves.” Finally, if everything is sorted out, the New Astronomers Group meets Tuesday the 22nd, with the program TBA. Observing for the month of June will be on the Fridays 11th and 18th, with Saturday the 19th as backup.

NSAS General Meeting 18 May

bobsastro — Sat, 15 May 2010 04:43:22 +0000

The NSAS General Meeting will be on Tuesday 18 May at St. Ignatius, 7:30 PM. The speaker is Chris Hales from USyd and CSIRO, and his talk will be on Cosmic Magnetism.
Abstract: Chris Hales is a PhD candidate studying the as-yet unknown
origin of tenuous large-scale magnetic fields that exist in galaxies like
our own Milky Way. How do these weak fields remain undistrupted in objects
as complex as galaxies? How did they get there in the first place? And how
do you even “see” a magnetic field? In this talk Chris will outline his
research, as well as the future prospects for radio astronomy with the
upcoming EUR1.5b Square Kilometre Array.

Theory Group Meeting Tuesday the 11th

bobsastro — Sun, 09 May 2010 07:51:50 +0000

The Theory Group will meet Tuesday the 11th at 7:30 at St. Ignatius. The two lectures are: “Early Studies of the Solar System” and “The Geocentric Universe”. See you there, and visitors are welcome.

May Observing

bobsastro — Sat, 01 May 2010 05:35:53 +0000

May Observing Nights will be Friday the 14th, with the backup on Friday the 21st. Due to lack of interest, Saturday observing will not take place unless the first and second Friday observing nights are clouded out. The Committee will plan for a Sausage Sizzle, probably on the 14th, so stay tuned.

May Meetings

bobsastro — Sat, 01 May 2010 05:33:20 +0000

May meetings are as follows: Tuesday May 11, Theory Group at St. Ignatius; Tuesday May 18, General Meeting at St. Ignatius, speaker is Minnie Mao from CSIRO who will talk about the Evolution of Galaxies; Tuesday May 25, New Astronomers Group at St. Ignatius. Members and visitors are welcome at all meetings.