Telescope Talks at SSU
Sonoma State University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy will commemorate the 400th anniversary of the telescope with three free public lectures on Mondays at 4 p.m. in Darwin 103, starting Nov. 17.
Joseph S. Miller of the University of California, Santa Cruz will lead off Nov. 17 with “California Observatories as Leaders in the Development of Very Large Optical Telescopes”. Miller is a vice chancellor of UCSC and former director of the Lick Observatory.
The following Monday Leonard Kuhi will speak on "The Large Binocular Telescope," a huge new telescope in Arizona. Kuhi, an astronomer and retired vice president of the University of Minnesota, was a leader in the development of the telescope which carries twin 28-foot diameter mirrors.
And on Dec. 1, SSU physics graduate Thomas McMahon will describe “Making Good Use of the Large Binocular Telescope,” an account of the nulling interferometer his team at the University of Arizona has built to search for planets orbiting nearby stars.
It was on October 23, 1608, that Dutch spectacle maker Hans Lipperhey applied for a patent for “a certain instrument for seeing far.” A few months later Galileo Galilei pointed one upward and astronomy changed forever, which is why 2009 will be the International Year of Astronomy.
For further information go to http://phys-astro.sonoma.edu/wpd/ or call (707) 664-2119.
