About us
Welcome to SJ Astronomy Meetup. We are an active group with a lot of events organized by the San Jose Astronomical Association. All events posted to this Meetup are open to the public but please note that joining this meetup does not automatically make you a member of SJAA. Becoming a formal member of SJAA provides members-only benefits, so we do encourage you to join. Please check out the membership benefits at https://www.sjaa.net/membership/benefits-of-membership-2/ to learn more and to join the club.
Also, please note that we need a profile picture for security reasons to join this group. Please consider uploading one before you send a request to join the group. Looking forward to sharing this cool hobby with all of you!
Upcoming events
61
Free Public Talk on Pictures of Distant Worlds
Foothill College, 12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills, CA, USDr. Bruce Macintosh (Director of the University of California Observatories) will give a free, illustrated, non-technical lecture entitled:
"Pictures of Distant Worlds"
in the Smithwick Theater at Foothill College, in Los Altos (see directions below)
The talk is part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series, now in its 27th year.
In the past three decades, more than 6000 planets have been discovered orbiting other stars beyond our own Solar System. However, we still don’t know if our Solar System is rare or unique — the powerful techniques that detect extrasolar planets have discovered systems very different than our own. In recent years, advances in technology have allowed a handful of giant planets around other stars to be imaged directly. Find out about the first-ever images of other solar systems — and the technology that has allowed us to discover them, such as the Gemini Planet Imager — as well as the future planet-hunting space telescopes. The ultimate goal is detection of a second ‘pale blue dot’ — an Earth twin where we could even see the biosignatures of extrasolar life.
Bruce Macintosh is the Director of the University of California Observatories in California and Hawaii. His research focuses on the study of extrasolar planets, in particular the study of such planets through direct imaging. Direct imaging of extrasolar planets involves blocking, suppressing, and subtracting the light of the bright parent star so that a planet hundreds of thousands of times fainter can be seen and studied in detail. Dr. Macintosh co-led the team that imaged the first extrasolar planets, and was the Principal Investigator of the Gemini Planet Imager, an advanced adaptive optics planet-finder for the Gemini South telescope.
Foothill College is just off the El Monte Road exit from Freeway 280 in Los Altos.
For directions and parking information, see: https://foothill.edu/parking/
For a campus map, to find the Smithwick Theater (Bldg. 1000), see:
https://foothill.edu/map/
Note: Parking lot 1 is closest, with access to the theater by a long set of stairs. Parking lot 5 provides access from the same elevation as the theater. Elevator access: Lot 8 (via building 8100 and then building 8400 elevators.)
The lecture is co-sponsored by:
* The Foothill College Science, Tech, Engineering & Math Division
* The SETI Institute and
* The Astronomical Society of the Pacific20 attendees
Past events
1101
Group links
Organizers
Members
7,980
