Astronomy Cafe – November 9th 2020

Posted by as Astro Cafe, Meetings

Transcript video of the Zoom meeting

Image of Dumbbell Nebula From New VCO Telescope by John McDonald

Messier 27, the Dumbell Nebula is a favorite target for imaging. This one was taken as a test of the Victoria Centre Observatory OGS telescope. Details 12.5″ OGS scope on Paramount ME mount. Canon Ra camera with Optical flattener. Exposure – 81 – 30s exposures at ISO 6400 with 42 darks and 21 bias frames for calibration. Processing in Deep Sky Stacker and Photoshop.

Public Lecture on latest discoveries regarding cosmology: 7PM Tuesday Nov. 10th

Jim Hesser recommends this public lecture by Joel Primack, prof. emeritus UC Santa Cruz,:

Description: This lecture will discuss the current understanding and the latest discoveries regarding cosmology – the science of the universe as a whole – and galaxies and planets. There is overwhelming evidence that most of the density of the universe is invisible dark matter and dark energy, with atomic matter making up only about five percent of cosmic density. UCSC cosmologists helped to create the standard modern cosmological theory — but the latest high-precision measurements have revealed potential discrepancies that may require new physics. Galaxies were long thought to start as disks of gas and stars, but observations by Hubble Space Telescope show that most galaxies instead start pickle shaped. More massive galaxies have massive black holes at their centers, and matter falling onto these black holes causes outflows of energy that can strongly affect their host galaxies. Information about planetary systems is growing rapidly with new observations, and our own solar system seems increasingly to be unusual.

Link to register for Primack’s virtual talk Tuesday night (7 PM PST):
https://calendar.ucsc.edu/event/state_of_the_universe_report_with_professor_emeritus_joel_primack#.X6mQxtt7mL8

Comments are closed.