Galway Astronomy Fest January 25/26 2008

Moving on from a very successful event in January 2007 which had some captivating talks by Dr Aaron Golden and Prof RN Butler in particular, Galway Astronomy Club are pleased to anounce details of the 2008 Astronomy Festival which co-insides with the 10th anniversary since the formation of the Galway club and takes place at NUI Galway on the Friday evening and the 4* Westwood House Hotel Saturday.

On Saturday at the Westwood Hotel registration starts at 9am with the first talk starting at 10am.

Dr Simon Green, a Senior Lecturer in the Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute of the Open University, UK will open the proceedings. His talk “Stardust: A new view of Comets”,will focus on the first NASA space mission dedicated solely to the exploration of a comet, and the first robotic mission designed to return extraterrestrial material from outside the orbit of the Moon. The sample return pod was returned to Earth in January last year and analysis of such fascinating celestial specks is expected to yield important insights into the evolution of the Sun its planets and possibly even the origin of life.

Further talks during the festival from the academic staff at NUI Galway include Dr Matt Redman on the story of the once 9th Planet, now demoted planet in a talk entitled “Is Pluto a Planet, why was it downgraded to a dwarf”. He is a Lecturer at the Dept of Experimental Physics at NUI Galway where he has worked since 2003. Currently his teaching responsibilities include Star & Planet Formation, Molecular Astrophysics, Astro-chemistry and Supernova remnants


Dr Nicholas Devaney will look at the latest pioneering work in the search for so called Extra-Solar Planets that orbit around other stars and the search for another Earth. From 1995- 2005 he worked as Adaptive Optics manager in La Palma during construction of the Gran Telescopio Canaries (GTC) a 10.4 metre telescope with 36 mirror segments, today most powerful of its kind on the planet. Other projects he is involved with have been co-ordinating research on co phasing mirror segments for the new European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), while he also helped with the design studies group on its 42 metre mirror

Finally Dr Mark Lang; "Observing the High Energy Universe with VERITAS"

Mark a lecturer with the Gamma Ray research group at NUI Galway will probe the VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) project that will examine the heavens in the TeV (that's very-high-energy gamma rays) range. TeV sources include supernova remnants and active galactic nuclei, powerful gamma ray bursts, and evidence of mysterious Dark Matter particles. With its array of four 12m telescopes, VERITAS hopes to be able to provide vital clues to how these exotic objects produce radiation at such extreme energies.

During the Lunch break Michael O’Connell of the Tullamore AS will present a Telescope building workshop in main hall www.astroshot.com

Professor Mike Redfern will again be opening the NUIG Observatory to the attendees at 6pm. The observatory consists of a “state-of-the-art” 40cm semi-automated Cassegrain with high-quality instrumentation. There is also a 3-meter radio telescope in the observatory grounds. Well worth a visit! astro.nuigalway.ie/

John Flannery of the South Dublin will once enlighten us with after dinner talk on his 2007 trip to various astrononomical centres in the United States.

While observing will take place on both nights at Rosscahill (weather permitting) see www.brigitsgarden.ie


Hope to see you there, our website will be updated shortly

Ronan Newman
Galway AC

So anyone else going this year??? personally i cant wait! i think a weekend affair is a great idea! One idea i suggest is that everyone put their username aswell as your real name on your name tag!!! CAnt wait for the observing nights aswell! Any one bringing their scopes??? Id love to see some truss dobs in action or nice big apo refractors! Like a tec??? Or an obsession??? lol!

Hi,

A couple of questions. How far are the Westwood hotel and the observatory from the centre of Galway? Are there any recommended places to stay? hotel etc?

Thanks

Neill

Is there anyway you could use another observing site, away from the universities observatory, Galway is surrounded by alot of dark skies, there must be somewhere else we could go observing that night?

Hi,

A couple of questions. How far are the Westwood hotel and the observatory from the centre of Galway? Are there any recommended places to stay? hotel etc?

Not far, probably a half hours walk. There are B&B's around the area. If Ronan doesn't put up an accommodation list (check www.galwayastronomy.ie ) then maybe the Westwood will have listings for the area.

Seanie.

Dave there is an unbelievably dark spot just outside of galway! Trevor Durity has brought me a few times and the skies are really nice! Not a huge amount of space though the two APOs and the SCT made it hard to manouver! Also there is silver strand.Its a beach just Outside of the city! Between knocnacarra and Barna! Nice and dark! Away from the main roads aswell and there is tonnes of space! We could have 100 telescopes there no prob and theres loads of space to park and the telescope would be 10 metres from the car so handy!!!

AS re accomodation the westwood itself usually gives us a special offer. I personally cant say that its the same this year maybe ronan can answer that one! Theres many hotels in Salthill and Knocnacarra.

Dave has a valid point. Looking at google earth Galway has some of the darkest spots in Europe! There is one place out in the Gaeltacht 45 minutes from galway that you can see the Milky Way stretch from horizon to horizon almost! its like a space walk when ya look up! I dont knmow how others feel about travelling that far but i honestly believe itd be worth it!

And i know for a fact that alot of people wouldnt get to see such a dark spot from day to day week to week! Aswell this week there have been so many clear nights! ive noticed it these past few weeks(ive been out VERY late alot recently) that we get beautiful skies here!

Matthew