Astronomy Club to talk about the Total Lunar Eclipse

Sat. February 9, 7:00 p.m. at 3141 5th St.

The Davis Astronomy Club at Explorit will meet at 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 9, at Explorit Science Center’s Mace Park Branch, 3141 Fifth St., Davis. All are invited. You needn’t be a member or pay any dues – if you are interested in astronomy, you are welcome to attend.

On the agenda: a preview of the Total Lunar Eclipse, which will be visible from Davis on the evening of Feb. 20. This will be the last total eclipse of the Moon until December 2010.

We will also discuss resources on the Internet to track the International Space Station, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Stargazing will follow the indoor program, weather permitting.

==============================================

Don’t miss astrophysicist’s free lecture about Dark Matter!

UC Davis astrophysicist J. Anthony Tyson will deliver a free public lecture titled “The New Digital Sky: Exploring the Dark Side of the Universe” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 19, at the Davis public library, 315 E. 14th St. It is part of Explorit Science Center’s 16th annual Science Café and Lecture Series.

Little is known about Dark Matter and Dark Energy even though they make up most of our universe. Scientists have developing techniques for making Dark Matter visible, and Dr. Tyson will bring examples to illustrate his talk.

He’ll also discuss his work as director of a national effort build a new kind of telescope/camera called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). Fueled by advances in software, microelectronics and large optics fabrication, the proposed LSST offers a new type of sky survey. In a relentless campaign of 15-second exposures, it will cover the sky deeply every week, opening a movie-like window on objects that change or move on rapid timescales: exploding supernovae, potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids, etc

The images from the LSST, to be built in Chile, will also chart billions of remote galaxies in 4-D, providing multiple probes of the mysterious Dark Matter and Dark Energy, Dr. Tyson says. About 30,000 gigabytes of multi-color images per night will be transformed into a new view of our four-dimensional universe.

Last fall, Dr. Tyson testified before a Congressional committee in Washington, D.C., about the project. He told committee members: “The main science themes that drive the LSST system design are Dark Energy and Dark Matter, the Solar System Inventory, Transient Optical Sky and the Milky Way Mapping. It is this diverse array of science goals that has generated the widespread excitement of scientists ranging from high-energy physicists to astronomers and planetary scientists, and earned LSST the endorsement of a number of committees commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences.”

Dr. Tyson’s lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. and last about an hour, including a question-and-answer time. Intel sponsors Explorit’s Science Café and Lecture Series.

To Receive These Bulletins via E-mail Contact Explorit at: Explorit Science Center

The Astronomy Club is for everyone - adults, children, knowledgeable or ignorant. Come to listen, look and learn, or to share your expertise or experience.