This Yahoo group publishes announcements of interesting events related to astronomy and aerospace in the San Francisco Bay Area. This can include events such as astronomy and interesting physical science lectures, club meetings, star parties, air shows and other events of interest mostly to amateur astronomers and science enthusiasts. Many thanks to Ken Lum, who created this event listing.
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Monday, 11/04/19. 12:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
Baryon Cycles in the Biggest Galaxies
Speaker: Mark Voit, MSU
Website: https://tac.berkeley.edu/monday-tac-seminar/
Cost: Free
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Monday, 11/04/19
06:30 PM – 08:00 PM
eConte Hall, Rm 3
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
Unraveling the Dark Matter Mystery: In Theory and Experiment
Join us for a conversation between a Theorist and an Experimentalist, both pursuing the search for Dark Matter.
What is dark matter? For decades, firm astronomical evidence from observations of stars and galaxies has indicated that most of the matter in the universe cannot be seen directly in telescopes. Instead, this matter must be observed indirectly through its gravitational pull on the objects that we can see. This is how the term “dark matter” was coined…But how do we search for something we can’t see?
Speakers: Matt Pyle, UC Berkeley; Sinead Griffin, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Website: http://events.berkeley.edu/index.php/calendar.html?event_ID=129420&date=2019-11-04&tab=lectures
Cost: Free
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Monday, 11/04/19
07:30 PM – 09:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Dr.
San Francisco, CA 94118
Celebrating 20 years with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory
The launch of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in 1999 brought X-ray astronomy into the main stream, with 10 times the resolution and the ability to see objects 100 times fainter than previous x-ray satellites.
As Chandra celebrates its 20th year of operations, Dr. Wilkes will review some of the major discoveries and highlights of its scientific progress to date. This encompasses determining whether habitable exoplanets can survive the birth of their stars, to finding very distant supermassive black holes when the Universe was 10% of its current age, and everything in between: the birth and death of stars, merging galaxies and black holes, and unexpectedly chaotic clusters of galaxies.
What does the future hold for new Chandra scientific opportunities now and over the next decade, and what might follow Chandra when it ends its illustrious career?
Speaker: Belinda Wilkes, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Website: https://www.calacademy.org/events/benjamin-dean-astronomy-lectures/celebrating-20-years-with-nasas-chandra-x-ray-observatory-0
Cost: $15 General, $12 Members and Seniors
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Tuesday, 11/05/19
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Varian Physics Building
382 Via Pueblo Mall
Room 355
Stanford, CA 94305
Two KIPAC Tea Talks
Discussion of the latest Nobel Physics prize award to Jim Peebles
Speaker: Ari Cukierman, Stanford
TBA
Speaker: Daniel Gilman, UCLA
Website: https://kipac.stanford.edu/events/cukierman-discussion-latest-nobel-physics-prize-award-jim-peebles-gilman-new-insights-nature
Cost: Free
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Tuesday, 11/05/19 1:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
Understanding cosmological evolution of galaxies with intensity mapping
Line-intensity mapping (LIM) is an emerging observational technique to study the large-scale structure of the universe. LIM measurements are sensitive to the aggregate line emission from the entire galaxy population, therefore placing important integral constraints on galaxy evolution in a cosmological context. In the first part of this talk, I will provide a status update of the Tomographic Ionized-carbon Mapping Experiment (TIME), a forthcoming instrument designed to measure the star formation rate during cosmic reionization by observing the redshifted 158-micron [CII] line in tomography. Over the same spectral coverage, it can simultaneously study the abundance of molecular gas during the era of peak star formation by observing the rotational CO lines. I will discuss the constraining power TIME will offer on various physical quantities, such as the escape fraction of ionizing photons and the evolution of cosmic molecular gas density. In the second part, I will present a simple, analytic framework to self-consistently model multiple emission lines in the context of using multi-line intensity mapping to dissect the multi-phase ISM of galaxies.
Speaker: Guochao Sun, Caltech
Website: https://cosmology.lbl.gov/sem_bcg_future.html
Cost: Free
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Thursday, 11/07/19
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Kavli Institute Astrophysics Colloquium
Physics and Astrophysics Building Room 102/103
452 Lomita Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
Properties of Neutron Stars Measured with the NICER Instrument
Speaker: Zaven Arzoumanian, Goddard Space Flight Center
Website: https://kipac.stanford.edu/events/properties-neutron-stars-measured-nicer-instrument
Cost: Free
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Thursday, 11/07/19
07:00 PM – 10:00 PM
City Star Parties – Point Lobos Parking Lot
El Camino Del Mar
San Francisco, CA 94121
San Francisco City Star Party: Lands End @ Point Lobos, San Francisco, CA
Come join us for our monthly San Francisco City Star Party. SFAA members provide telescopes for your viewing pleasure.
Be sure to check the SFAA website for the latest updates…bad weather or overcast skies will cancel!
Website: https://www.sfaa-astronomy.org/events/cat_ids~55/%22%3e%20City%20Star%20Parties/
Cost: Free
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Thursday, 11/07/19
07:00 PM – 09:30 PM
Astronomy Night
Campbell Hall
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
Astro Night: When did Saturn Become the Lord of the Rings?
Speaker: Burkhard Militzer, UC Berkeley
Stargazing follows the lecture from 8:00 – 9:30.
Website: https://astro.berkeley.edu/news/events/astro-night/
Cost: Free
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Friday, 11/08/19
10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC)
Building 51
3rd Floor Conference room
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Two KIPAC Tea Talks
The Electromagnetic Counterparts of GW170817 and Future Gravitational Wave Events
Speaker: Kunal Mooley, NRAO and CalTech
TBD
Speaker: Meredith Powell, Stanford
Website: https://kipac.stanford.edu/events/mooley-electromagnetic-counterparts-gw170817-and-future-gravitational-wave-events-powell-tbd
Cost: Free
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Nov 8, Friday 12 pm (INPA seminar)
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
LBL 50-5132
1 Cyclotron Road
Berkeley, CA 94720
Solene Chabanier, IRFU, CEA, Universite Paris-Saclay
Toward precision cosmology with the Lya forest
Neutral hydrogen in the Intergalactic Medium produces a collection of Lya absorptions, called the Lya forest, seen in the spectra of background objects. According to the common paradigm, neutral hydrogen in the IGM evolves from primordial density fluctuations in a low density and photo-ionized environment. It, therefore, acts as a direct tracer of Dark Matter (DM). However, it also implies that temperature and density are tightly coupled, giving rise to degeneracies between parameters describing either cosmology or the IGM thermal history. The Lya forest 1D power spectrum is sensitive to clustering on small scales, and as such to the smoothing scale of relativistic particles. It has been used to put the strongest constraints on the sum of the neutrino masses and to study DM models. To infer cosmological constraints and to test our models at the percent level accuracy, the measurements need to be compared to state-of-the-art hydrodynamical simulations. We also need to refine our understanding of the impact of galactic feedbacks on the IGM temperature.
I will present the analysis that leads to the most recent P1D measurement. As the current uncertainties are at the percent level, and will even shrink further in the DESI era, the P1D becomes sensitive to complex mechanical effects known as AGN feedback. We use Adaptative Mesh Refinement (AMR) hydrodynamical simulations, the Horizon-AGN and Horizon-noAGN simulations, to evaluate its impact on the P1D and prevent degeneracies with neutrino effects. Finally, I will present current constraints on the mass of active neutrinos and on Warm Dark Matter models.
Website: https://cosmology.lbl.gov/sem_bcg_future.html
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Friday, 11/08/19. 7:30 PM
Peninsula Astronomical Society
Foothill College
Bldg. 5000, Room 5015 (our old venue)
Los Altos Hills, CA 94022
July 2019 Solar Eclipse Experience
Members of the Peninsula Astronomical Society will share their experiences at the July 2019 solar eclipse.
Website: http://pastro.org/dnn/
Cost: Free ($3 parking)
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Fri. 11/08/2019 7PM
Telescope Makers Workshop
Chabot Space and Science Center
10000 Skyline Boulevard
Oakland, CA 94619-2450
Chabot’s TMW is one of only a handful of regularly scheduled telescope making workshops in the U.S., and probably the world; it meets every Friday evening throughout the year, except Memorial Day weekend. It has been in operation since December of 1930, founded by Franklin B. Wright, and is currently run by Eastbay Astronomical Society member Rich Ozer, with help from other EAS members, Dave Barosso, Barry Leska, and others. The price of admission is FREE. All you have to do is show up, buy a mirror blank and a “tool” (typically around $100 – $200 depending on the size of the mirror) and start “pushin’ glass!” We supply you with instruction, the various grits you’ll need to first grind, and then polish and figure your mirror, and all the testing equipment needed. With a small bit of luck, you could wind up with a telescope that costs 1/3 or 1/4 the cost of a store-bought telescope, that is yet optically superior! Itdoes take time – depending on how much time you put in on it, and other factors, it could take a few months or several months. But, it’s a fun project, great for kids, and at the end you get a great telescope!
For more information call or email Richard Ozer at pres@eastbayastro.org or phone (510) 406-1914.
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Fri. 11/08/2019 and Sat. 11/09/2019
Chabot Space and Science Center
10000 Skyline Boulevard
Oakland, CA 94619-2450
(510) 336-7300
EXPLORE THE NIGHT SKIES AT THE CHABOT OBSERVATORIES
for more information: http://www.chabotspace.org/
Free Telescope Viewing
Regular hours are every Friday & Saturday evening, weather permitting: 7:30pm -10:30pm
Come for spectacular night sky viewing the best kept secret in the Bay Area and see the magnificence of our telescopes in action!
Daytime Telescope Viewing On Saturday and Sunday afternoons come view the sun, moon, or Venus through Chabot’s telescopes. Free with General Admission.
12pm – 5pm: Observatories Open (weather permitting)
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Fri 11/08/2019 9PM
Foothill College
12345 El Monte Rd
Los Altos Hills, CA 94022
Foothill Observatory is open for public viewing every clear Friday evening from 9:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. Visitors can view the wonders of the universe through the observatory’s computer-controlled 16- inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope.
Views of objects in our solar system may include craters and mountains on the moon, the moons and cloud-bands of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, etc. Deep space objects including star clusters, nebulae, and distant galaxies also provide dramatic demonstrations of the vastness of the cosmos.The choice of targets for any evening’s viewing depends on the season and what objects are currently in the sky.
Admission is free. Parking is $3
Foothill Observatory is located on the campus of Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, CA. Take Highway 280 to the El Monte Rd exit. The observatory is next to parking lot 4. Parking at the college requires visitor parking permits that are available from the machines in the parking lots for $3.00. Dispensers accept one-dollar bills and quarters; bring exact change. Citations are issued.
Come to Foothill Observatory and join us in the exploration of our Universe!
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Sat. 11/09/2019 10AM
Foothill College
12345 El Monte Rd
Los Altos Hills, CA 94022
Foothill College Observatory 10AM-12PM if it is clear Solar observing with a Hydrogen alpha solar telescope every clear Saturday morning. This allows spectacular views of solar prominences and unusual surface features on the Sun not otherwise visible with regular white light telescopes.
Admission is free. Parking is $3
Foothill Observatory is located on the campus of Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, CA. Take Highway 280 to the El Monte Rd exit. The observatory is next to parking lot 4. Parking at the college requires visitor parking permits that are available from the machines in the parking lots for $3.00. Dispensers accept one-dollar bills and quarters; bring exact change. Citations are issued.
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Saturday, 11/09/19
09:00 AM – 03:00 PM
Foothill College Sunnyvale Center
1070 Innovation Way
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Possible Self STEM Fair
A day of interactive, hands-on activities designed for 6th to 10th grade students and their families to Explore, Create, Make, and Learn about excitiing opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)
Website: https://stementorssv.org/possible-self-event/
Cost: Free
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Saturday, 11/09/19
07:30 PM – 09:30 PM
San Jose Astronomical Association
Houge Park
3972 Twilight Drive
San Jose, CA 95124
Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Runaway Universe
Some of the most energetic and fascinating objects in the Universe are exploding stars known as supernova. These colossal outbursts result from the deaths of stars and for a time can outshine the entire galaxy in which they’re found. Elements necessary for life are built up in stars during their lifetimes and are spread throughout space during these supernova explosions. Observations of distant supernova provided the first evidence that the expansion of the Universe is speeding up with time, rather than slowing down. This wholly unexpected phenomenon is likely due to a repulsive “dark energy” and has become one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in modern science.
Speaker: Jeffery Silverman, Samba TV
Website: https://www.meetup.com/SJ-Astronomy/events/265779459/
Cost: Free
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Monday, 11/11/19
06:45 AM – 10:00 AM
Foothill College Observatory
12345 El Monte Road
Building 2300, Hearthside Lounge
Los Altos Hills, CA 94022
Mercury Transit viewing from the Foothill Observatory
On Monday, November 11, the Foothill College Astronomy Department and the Peninsula Astronomical Society will be viewing the transit of Mercury. Join us at the Foothill Observatory (by parking lot 4) from sunrise at 6:44 a.m., when Mercury will already be in front of the sun, until the end of the transit just after 10 a.m.
Cost: Free ($3 parking)
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Monday, 11/11/19
08:30 AM – 11:00 AM
San Jose Astronomical Association
Houge Park
3972 Twilight Drive
San Jose, CA 95124
Mercury Transit Across The Sun
Now here’s something you don’t see every day. In fact, you won’t see it again until 2032!
This Monday morning, Mercury will temporarily move between the Earth and the Sun. This event is like a tiny solar eclipse, where Mercury will block part of the Sun from our perspective, and we will see Mercury move across the disk of the Sun over the course of a few hours.
Unfortunately, the transit starts before the Sun will rise, but from our vantage point in San Jose, we’ll be able to watch the last third of it.
Do not look at the Sun with your naked eyes (!) but we’ll have telescopes with special filters to make this spectacle safe to observe.
Along the way, we can also share with you a little about how the Sun works and how complex magnetic fields drive sunspots and prominences that we may get to see as well. And we’ll probably have some donuts, coffee and tea to make it easier to bear this early-morning event.
Website: https://www.meetup.com/SJ-Astronomy/events/265944456/
Cost: Free
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Tuesday, 11/12/19 1:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
Measuring the Hubble constant from time-delays of strongly lensed quasars
The recent tension between early- and late-Universe measurements of the Hubble constant highlights the necessity for independent and precise probes such as the time-delay cosmography. The measured time-delays between the lensed images of a background quasar depend on the absolute physical scales in the lens configuration. Thus, the time-delays allow measurements of these scales to infer the Hubble constant, H_0. Due to a number of great advancements over the past decade in both the data quality and modeling techniques, the measurement of H_0 from the time-delays has fulfilled its promise to be competitive with other traditional methods such as the cosmic distance ladder. This is evident from the recent 2.4% blind measurement of H_0 from only six lenses (Wong et al. 2019). Simulation shows that a sample of nine lenses shrinks the uncertainty on this measurement to 2% (Shajib et al. 2018). I will present the Hubble constant measured from a newly analyzed lens system taking the sample size to seven. In addition, I will present the future roadmap of time-delay cosmography to independently reach 1% precision within a few years.
Speaker: Anowar Shajib, UC Los Angeles
Website: https://cosmology.lbl.gov/sem_bcg_future.html
Cost: Free
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Tuesday, 11/12/19
04:30 PM – 05:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center
370 Serra Mall, Room 200
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
Black Holes in Physics and Astrophysics
Professors Roger Blandford and Eva Silverstein of the Stanford University Physics Department will each give an Applied Physics/Physics colloquium
Website: https://physics.stanford.edu/events/physics-and-astrophysics-black-holes-and-horizons
Cost: Free
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Wednesday, 11/13/19 7:00 PM
Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series
Foothill College
Smithwick Theater
Los Altos Hills, CA 94022
Meet the Neighbors: Planetary Systems Orbiting Nearby Stars
The NASA Kepler mission revealed that our Galaxy is teeming with planetary systems and that Earth-sized planets are common. However, most of the planets detected by Kepler orbit stars too faint to permit detailed study. The NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS,) launched in 2018, is finding hundreds of small planets orbiting stars that are much closer and brighter. Dr. Dressing will describe the TESS mission and explain how analyses of the TESS planets will allow us to probe the composition of small planets, investigate the formation of planetary systems, and set the stage for the next phase of exoplanet exploration: the quest for the signatures of life in the atmospheres of strange new worlds.
Speaker: Courtney Dressing, UC Berkeley
Website: https://foothill.edu/astronomy/
Cost: Free ($3 parking)
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Friday, 11/15/19
10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC)
Building 51
3rd Floor Conference room
Menlo Park, CA 94025
M87: from the event horizon to the parsec-scale jet, plus Galaxy Workshop
Speaker: Koushik Chatterjee, University of Amsterdam
Also, short talks will be given by visitors to the Galaxy Workshop
Website: https://kipac.stanford.edu/events/chatterjee-m87-event-horizon-parsec-scale-jet-short-talks-visitors-attending-galaxy-workshop
Cost: Free
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Friday, 11/15/19 7:00 PM
Tri-Valley Stargazers
1893 N. Vasco Rd
Unitarian Universalist Church
Livermore, CA 94551
Cosmochemical constraints on the earliest evolution of the Solar System
Cosmochemistry, the study of chemical and isotopic signatures of meteorites, can provide direct constraints on the origin and evolution of the Solar System. As a discipline, it therefore, represents an important complement to fields like astronomy and astrophysics. Here I will review recent developments in cosmochemistry, and discuss several important implications for the dynamics of the early Solar System. From a cosmochemist’s viewpoint, the evolution of the solar protoplanetary disk started with the formation of the oldest dated solids, Ca-Al-rich inclusions (CAIs), which formed ~4567 billion years ago. A second important step in early Solar System evolution is the formation of the first ~km-sized bodies known as planetesimals. Recent isotope studies of iron meteorites-metal samples of small planetesimal cores-demonstrate that core segregation in their parent bodies occurred within the first ~1-3 million years (Myr) after CAIs. Consequently, the formation of iron meteorite parent bodies occurred even earlier, well within <1 Ma of Solar System formation, demonstrating that planetesimals formed very early. Recent work has shown that meteorites exhibit a fundamental isotopic dichotomy between non-carbonaceous (NC) and carbonaceous (CC) groups, which most likely represent material from the inner and outer Solar System, respectively. The NC-CC dichotomy combined with the ages of meteorites mandate an early and prolonged spatial separation of inner (NC) and outer (CC) solar protoplanetary disk reservoirs, lasting between ~1 and ~4 Myr after Solar System formation. This is most easily reconciled with the early and rapid growth of Jupiter's core, inhibiting significant exchange of material from inside and outside its orbit. An important consequence of this finding is that Jupiter is the oldest planet of the Solar System and its solid core must have formed well within <1 Ma after CAIs. Speaker: Thomas Kruijer, Lawrence Livermore National Labs Website: http://www.trivalleystargazers.org Cost: Free ================================== Friday, November 15, 2019 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM San jose Astronomical Assoc. In-Town Star Party Houge Park 3972 Twilight Dr San Jose, CA Come view the heavens through a telescope at the SJAA's In Town Star Party. Bring a scope to share the views, and if you do, feel free to come early to set up. Remember, this event is free, everyone is invited, no reservations required. Just show up! ================================== Fri. 11/15/2019 7PM Telescope Makers Workshop Chabot Space and Science Center 10000 Skyline Boulevard Oakland, CA 94619-2450 Chabot's TMW is one of only a handful of regularly scheduled telescope making workshops in the U.S., and probably the world; it meets every Friday evening throughout the year, except Memorial Day weekend. It has been in operation since December of 1930, founded by Franklin B. Wright, and is currently run by Eastbay Astronomical Society member Rich Ozer, with help from other EAS members, Dave Barosso, Barry Leska, and others. The price of admission is FREE. All you have to do is show up, buy a mirror blank and a "tool" (typically around $100 - $200 depending on the size of the mirror) and start "pushin' glass!" We supply you with instruction, the various grits you'll need to first grind, and then polish and figure your mirror, and all the testing equipment needed. With a small bit of luck, you could wind up with a telescope that costs 1/3 or 1/4 the cost of a store-bought telescope, that is yet optically superior! Itdoes take time - depending on how much time you put in on it, and other factors, it could take a few months or several months. But, it's a fun project, great for kids, and at the end you get a great telescope! For more information call or email Richard Ozer at pres@eastbayastro.org or phone (510) 406-1914. ================================== Fri. 11/15/2019 and Sat. 11/16/2019 Chabot Space and Science Center 10000 Skyline Boulevard Oakland, CA 94619-2450 (510) 336-7300 EXPLORE THE NIGHT SKIES AT THE CHABOT OBSERVATORIES for more information: http://www.chabotspace.org/ Free Telescope Viewing Regular hours are every Friday & Saturday evening, weather permitting: 7:30pm -10:30pm Come for spectacular night sky viewing the best kept secret in the Bay Area and see the magnificence of our telescopes in action! Daytime Telescope Viewing On Saturday and Sunday afternoons come view the sun, moon, or Venus through Chabot's telescopes. Free with General Admission. 12pm - 5pm: Observatories Open (weather permitting) ================================== Fri 11/15/2019 9PM Foothill College 12345 El Monte Rd Los Altos Hills, CA 94022 Foothill Observatory is open for public viewing every clear Friday evening from 9:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. Visitors can view the wonders of the universe through the observatory's computer-controlled 16- inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. Views of objects in our solar system may include craters and mountains on the moon, the moons and cloud-bands of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, etc. Deep space objects including star clusters, nebulae, and distant galaxies also provide dramatic demonstrations of the vastness of the cosmos.The choice of targets for any evening's viewing depends on the season and what objects are currently in the sky. Admission is free. Parking is $3 Foothill Observatory is located on the campus of Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, CA. Take Highway 280 to the El Monte Rd exit. The observatory is next to parking lot 4. Parking at the college requires visitor parking permits that are available from the machines in the parking lots for $3.00. Dispensers accept one-dollar bills and quarters; bring exact change. Citations are issued. Come to Foothill Observatory and join us in the exploration of our Universe! ================================== Sat. 11/16/2019 10AM Foothill College 12345 El Monte Rd Los Altos Hills, CA 94022 Foothill College Observatory 10AM-12PM if it is clear Solar observing with a Hydrogen alpha solar telescope every clear Saturday morning. This allows spectacular views of solar prominences and unusual surface features on the Sun not otherwise visible with regular white light telescopes. Admission is free. Parking is $3