Friday, 10 Sep 2010
@ 19:00Hrs
Venue: Waharau Regional Park
Speaker/Host:
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Dark Sky Weekend at Waharau Regional Park.
Friday 10th September to Sunday 12th September 2010
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Monday, 13 Sep 2010
@ 20:00Hrs
Venue: Stardome Observatory
Speaker/Host:
Grant Christie
Astronomy: What have we learned in 100 years?
One hundred years ago, our understanding of the Universe was quite limited. This talk will chart the progress of astronomy over the last century and explain how better instruments has led to new theories about the formation of planets, stars, galaxies and, indeed, the universe. And yet today we are still confronted by major unknowns and technical challenges - what could we expect in the coming century?
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Saturday, 09 Oct 2010
@ 18:30Hrs
Venue: Alexandra Park
Speaker/Host:
Prof. John Hernshaw
The societys annual dinner. The evening will include prizegiving for the Beaumont Prize, for contributions in the journal, and the Harry Williams Trophy for astrophotography.
Guest Speaker:
Prof. John Hernhsaw, University of Canterbury
Adventures of a Travelling Astronomer in Central Asia: in the footsteps of Marco Polo and Ulugh Beg
John will describe his experiences in recent years in three countries of Central Asia wherehe made astronomical visits, namely Mongolia (2004), Uzbekistan (2008) and Tajikistan (2010). The history and culture of these three countries are all completely different and the problems faced by astronomers there are also different, although they are relatively poor countries struggling to do good science. But they all share one thing in common: some of the worlds best high altitude sites for optical and infrared astronomy are to be found in this region bordering on the Himalayas.
A full buffet dinner in included.
Tickets are $70 per person and are available from Andrew Buckingham on 09 473 5877 or treasurer@astronomy.org.nz
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Monday, 11 Oct 2010
@ 20:00Hrs
Venue: Stardome Observatory
Speaker/Host:
Prof. John Hearnshaw
Prof. Hearnshaw will present his personal list of the 25 most important and influential discoveries in astronomy of the 20th century. I will analyse the papers that reported these discoveries by the year they occurred, the age of the discoverers and the country where the people worked.
The decades 1911-20 and the mid-1960s to mid-70s were the most productive of the 20th century, in spite of the later arrival of computers and observatories in space. I suggest reasons for the decline in the rate of really important papers in the final two decades of the century.
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