Online Star Party
Register to receive the Zoom link!
Event starts at 7:00 pm
Richard Hennig will do a brief presentation on "What's Up"
No real observing, but we will have an informal get together online.
Hope to see you "there!", Rain or Shine!!!
Location to be determined - may be online via Zoom - check back for update
Join us for an exciting and interesting evening at the Kika Silva Pla Planetarium (Santa Fe College)!
Speaker: James Albury
Planetarium Director and host of the YouTube Series "The Sky Above Us"
Topic: Fall Stars
About the Speaker:
James C. Albury grew up in Miami, FL where he started volunteering at the Miami Museum of Science and Space Transit Planetarium at the of age 14. He began by helping with ushering, but by age 15, he began working part-time as a console operator for the planetarium. Albury enjoyed astronomy and the planetarium environment so much, that he stayed with the Miami Science Museum until age 22 when he moved away to college.
In 1988, Albury relocated to Gainesville, FL to pursue a degree in Astronomy from the University of Florida. He graduated in 1992 with a Bachelor of Science in Astronomy and pursued post-baccalaureate studies in astronomy shortly thereafter.
Careers in astronomy being what they were, Albury worked from 1993 - 2007 for UF's Office of Academic Technology and then as a manager with Lifestyle Family Fitness in Jacksonville, FL from 2007 - 2009. In 2009, Albury was able to professionally return to his first love (Astronomy) when he became the director of the Kika Silva Pla Planetarium at Santa Fe College. He has The Sky Above Us – with James Albury http://www.theskyaboveus.org 2 produced numerous planetarium shows in the 11 years that he has been the planetarium’s director.
Albury was also a co-host with Dean Regas of the internationally syndicated PBS show “Star Gazers” (the world’s only weekly television program on naked-eye astronomy). Albury and Regas hosted the show together from October 2011 to November 2019. In February 2020, Albury launched his own astronomy series on YouTube titled “The Sky Above Us”. Each episode gives viewers a sneak-peak at the celestial events, planets and constellations that are visible in the sky during the coming weeks. (http://www.theskyaboveus.org)
Between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2020, Albury served as President of the Southeastern Planetarium Association (SEPA); a professional organization for the support of planetaria and staff in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and all U.S. Territories off the southeastern coast of the U.S. He currently serves on the SEPA Executive Council as Past-president (2021-2022) and advises the current President and Vice-president. (http://www.sepadomes.org)
Albury has spoken around the country and internationally on various astronomical topics, including the challenges and opportunities for public interest in astronomy and astronomical outreach.
Lastly, Albury has a very supportive family in his wife Kandra and three children Drea, Myra and Bryce; without whom none of this would be possible.
Agenda: 7:00 - 7:30 General Meeting & Announcements 7:30 - 7:45 Refreshments 7:45 - Presentation
Meeting by Zoom
Agenda:
7:00 - 7:30 General Meeting & Announcements 7:30 - 7:45 Refreshments 7:45 - Public Presentation
Speaker: Imre Bartos
Assistant Professor of Physics Institute for High Energy Physics and Astrophysics (IHEPA)
Topic: Black Hole Collisions and Gravitational Waves
Dr. Imre Bartos received his PhD from Columbia University, where he subsequently remained as a lecturer and then research scientist before joining the faculty at the University of Florida. His broad field of interest are gravitational-wave and multi-messenger astrophysics. He primarily studies extreme cosmic events related to the formation and evolution of black holes. Dr. Bartos is a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the LISA Consortium, and is an associate member of the IceCube Collaboration.
Dr. Bartos was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 2020, and the Excellence Award from the University of Florida in 2020. He was the recipient of the Allan M. Sachs Teaching Award, and the co-recipient of the Breakthrough Prize, Gruber Prize, Einstein Medal, and the Bruno Rossi Prize.
Abstract:
In the past five years scientists gained a completely new way of learning about the Universe. Gravitational waves are the ripples of the fabric of space itself that are produced when heavy objects accelerate. Importantly, the cosmic events that create gravitational waves are distinct from those that produce other kinds of observable radiation, like light, making them a unique probe of outer space. Black holes in particular are ideal in producing gravitational waves as they can be quite heavy and can accelerate to speeds close to the speed of light when approaching another black hole.
With the LIGO gravitational wave observatories we can now sense the collisions of black holes from billions of light years away. In the next decade new detectors will be able to find such collisions all the way out to the edge of the Universe. The talk will introduce gravitational waves, how they are created, and what we learned so far about black holes and the cosmos by their observation.
Topic: Winter Stars
