SFAA General Meeting Lecture Schedule....as of 2/18/2008

[JoeWM]

San Francisco Amateur Astronomers Lecture Series, 2008

Free & Open to the Public sfaa-astronomy.org



Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way, S.F.

7:30pm, Randall Museum Theater

randallmuseum.org



March 19th

Don Machholz

“A Celebration of the Messier Marathon”

Join well-known comet hunter, Don Machholz for a special presentation on the

18th century astronomer, Charles Messier, who is famous for compiling the

Messier Catalog of 110 celestial objects. The Messier Marathon, which Machholz

helped to design and promote will be discussed in this exciting presentation.





April 16th

Nick Kanas, UCSF

“Star Maps: History, Artistry and Cartography”

People have been observing and mapping the heavens since antiquity in an effort to

understand their place in the universe. Dr. Kanas will trace the history of celestial

cartography from the time of the classical Greeks through the Golden Age of pictorial

celestial maps to modern day star atlases. He will illustrate his talk with photographs

from antiquarian celestial books and prints taken from his recent book:

Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography





May 21st

Andrew Westphal, Space Science Lab, U.C. Berkeley

“Stardust: The First Solid Sample Return Mission from Beyond the Moon”

In January 2006, the Stardust mission returned to Earth the first solid extra-

terrestrial samples of material collected beyond the Moon. Westphal will report on

the most recent surprising results from the analyses, aided by over 23,000

volunteers in the Stardust@home project.





June 18th

Janet Luhmann, U.C. Berkeley

“Space Weather”

Janet Luhmann will talk to us about our Solar dynamo, which is returning

to a new solar activity cycle, and how it may affect us, our satellites and

those who will venture into space. Join us for this interesting topic.







July 16th

To be announced





August 20th

To be announced.





September 17th

Dana Bachman, SOFIA, NASA Ames

“SOFIA: NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy”

SOFIA, a 2.5-meter (100-inch) telescope mounted in a modified 747SP aircraft, is expected to begin scientific observations in spring 2009. Flying above more than 99% of Earth's atmospheric water vapor, SOFIA will have nearly the same access as a space telescope to far-infrared and sub-millimeter radiation from celestial sources. The talk will cover development and testing of SOFIA as well as prospects for some of the exciting scientific observations that SOFIA will make possible.





October 15th

To be announced.





November 19th

Jeff Cuzzi, NASA Ames

“What Have We Learned from the Cassini/Huygens Mission to Saturn”

In this talk, Jeff Cuzzi will review the key science highlights so far on the giant

planet Saturn, its spectacular rings, its small but very diverse icy moons,

and its planet-sized moon, Titan.





December 17th

Member’s Night

Our December meeting features presentations from our SFAA members, plus the annual contests from our members of entries of astronomy art, astrophotography and astronomy literary works. Elections of our volunteers for Officers and Board Members are held on this festive evening.