Hosted by KikaSilva Pla Planetarium – Santa Fe College
AAC volunteers are invited to set up for solar viewing in the courtyard in front of the Planetarium starting at 1:15 pm, then start packing things up around 4 pm.
The time frame for the eclipse is:
1:45 pm partial eclipse begins
3:03 pm maximum eclipse for Gainesville = 70% coverage
4:18 pm end of eclipse for Gainesville
Agenda:
7:00 - 7:15 General Meeting & Announcements 7:15 - 7:30 Short topic presentation by a club member
7:30 - 7:45 Refreshment break
7:45 - Public Presentation
Speaker: Corin Marasco, UF
Title: Giant Stars and How We Study Them
Abstract:
Giant stars are unimaginably large, making them some of the most luminous and impressive objects in the galaxy. They are so bright that when we look up into the night sky, you can see hundreds of these stellar giants with your naked eye, despite them being relatively rare. I will give an overview of a star’s life cycle to show how they become giants, and I’ll explain asteroseismology, which is a newer method we are using to determine a giant star’s age, size, composition, and more. I will also discuss different types of giants and why they’re important, with a focus on yellow supergiants, the rarest type of star. Researching these giant stars is not only fun, but essential for understanding our universe, from things as small as exoplanets to as large as galaxies.
About the Speaker:
Research Interests:
Her research interests lie in high-energy and stellar astrophysics. Her undergraduate research aimed to better understand yellow supergiants by studying a population of them to look for trends among their characteristics. She has also interned at NASA GSFC and MSFC, where sh worked on projects that used observations of high-energy sources to explore ways to more accurately interpret data from NASA's X-ray telescopes (primary NuSTAR and Chandra). She is now interested in pursuing similar research, especially studying stellar populations and continuing to work with X-ray data.
Exclusively for AAC members!
AAC has organized a dark sky star party at one of the darkest skies on the east coast!
Sunset is 8:05 pm.
Arrive at least one hour before sunset for setup and to get familiar with the observing field before dark.
Please review the Star Party etiquette for Chiefland. http://shorturl.at/cgkMO
You need to register to attend and receive directions to observing field.
Event Alerts - Members please register to attend. A "GO" or "NO GO" will be emailed to registrants by noon the day of the event. Your need to be registered for me to send you updates
Speaker: Multiple AAC Members
Title: Total Solar Eclipse Experience
Several AAC members will share their experiences from the April 8th total solar eclipse.
About the Speakers:
N/A
Speaker: James Albury
Planetarium Director and host of the YouTube Series "The Sky Above Us"
Topic: Super Massive Black Holes: Uncovering the Invisible
Leading scientists in observational and theoretical studies of black holes and galaxies, industrial experts in cutting-edge big technologies, and professionals in science dissemination have been brought together to set up research projects which will combine the latest state-of-the-art observations, numerical simulations and innovative analytic tools to compare theory with observation, and shed light on the physics of black hole formation in the context of galaxy evolution. This planetarium show presents the environments of the black holes in an impressive and understandable way to the audience.
Join James Albury, host of the YouTube astronomy program "The Sky Above Us" (TheSkyAboveUs.org), and 2011-2019 co-host of the PBS TV Show "Star Gazers", as he takes you on a personally guided tour of our night sky, using our GOTO Chronos Space Simulator. Florida Skies is our weekly star show that familiarizes you with some of the popular constellations visible from sunset to sunrise, as well as the stories behind them. We'll also show you how and where in the sky you can find the brightest planets.
Our speaker will be attending in person, please try to attend in person too!
Speaker:
Jerry Cheney, PhD, OD
Alachua Astronomy Club
Topic: How to Build a Home Observatory
A home observatory offers the amateur astronomer more and better opportunities to observe the night sky. Instead of spending hours setting up and breaking down equipment on a nightly basis, you can begin observations after only a few minutes of setup. Larger mounts and telescopes that are prohibitive to bring out and put away nightly can be accommodated easily in a well built observatory. Using my observatory build as an example, I will discuss many of the issues you need to consider in building an observatory. Your observatory build will differ based on your observing goals and equipment, your building skills, your location, and your budget.
Jerry Cheney grew up in southeast Texas. He earned his BS in Biology from Lamar University in 1976 and went on to earn his PhD in Biological Oceanography from the MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography in 1981. He then accepted a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he met and married his lovely wife, Marianne. They have two sons, Michael, an industrial engineer in Tampa, and Chris, currently in his final year of Pharmacy School at UF.
Dr. Cheney taught oceanography at the college level and continued his studies of the distribution of zooplankton in the North Atlantic, but after ten years he decided to change careers to become an optometrist. He graduated from the New England College of Optometry in 1994. The family moved to Florida in 1997 and eventually settled in Ocala, where Dr. Cheney practiced for fifteen years. He had the good fortune to be able to retire in 2014.
Dr. Cheney always had an interest in astronomy, and being a scientist by general nature and training, he has taken up astronomy as hobby in retirement He joined the Alachua Astronomy Club in 2015 and has served in the club’s administration for many years, including as president from 2017 to 2019. He teaches science courses, including astronomy, through Senior Learners in Ocala.
Speaker: Dr. Daniel Britt, Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences, Department of Physics, University of Central Florida.
Title: Meteorites
Abstract: TBD
Speaker: Dr. Hal McAlister
Title: Astronomical Interferometry at Mount Wilson
Hal received a B.A. in physics in 1971 from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, then his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in astronomy in 1974 and 1975 from the University of Virginia. In 1977 Hal joined the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy as an assistant professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Promotions to associate professor, full professor and designation as a Regents Professor came in 1982, 1987, and 1998. He retired from his faculty position as Regents Professor Emeritus in 2011. At Georgia State University he founded the Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) in 1983 and served as its director until he retired in 2015. He led the team that turned a dream for an astronomical interferometer into the reality of the CHARA Array, currently producing the world's highest resolution images of the surfaces and close environs of stars. During 2002–2014 he also served pro-bono as CEO of the Mount Wilson Institute and Director of Mount Wilson Observatory, the site of the CHARA Array. He has authored or co-authored some 450 scientific papers in the areas of binary star speckle interferometry and long-baseline optical/near-infrared interferometry.
Awards:
UTC honored Hal as its commencement speaker in 2001 and as its Distinguished Alumnus for 2008. GSU designated him as its Alumni Distinguished Professor for 1996, its Doctoral Hooding Ceremony speaker for 2010, and as a Centennial Speaker for 2013. Hal's other awards include the 2007 Maria and Eric Muhlmann Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the Michelson Lifetime Achievement Award sponsored by Lowell Observatory and the Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur in 2017. Hal and Susan McAlister were jointly awarded the Double Star Award of the Los Angeles Astronomical Society in 2009 and the Clifford W. Holmes Award of the RTMC Astronomy Expo in 2010 for their efforts on behalf of Mount Wilson during the 2009 Station Fire. Citing his "pioneering work in high angular resolution astronomy including the discovery of thousands of visual binary stars; for founding the GSU Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy; and for a decade of leadership of the historic Mount Wilson Observatory," Hal was designated as a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in January 2022.
Hal had a two-year postdoctoral research associateship at the Kitt Peak National Observatory during which he became deeply involved in optimizing the then very new technique of speckle interferometry for high angular resolution studies of binary star systems. That method is now the predominant means for measuring orbital motions of resolved binary star systems.