1. Watch Eclipse of the Sun
Online
While not visible from Ireland, people in Australia and the
South Pacific will get to see a Solar Eclipse later on. However, people in
Ireland and elsewhere can watch the eclipse live from 10pm Irish time via a live
broadcast from the Coca-Cola Space Science Center in Australia. You can watch
the broadcast HERE.
QUIRKY FACT: The next total eclipse of the
Sun visible from Ireland is not until the afternoon of Saturday, September 23rd
in 2090. But even then it is total only from the extreme southwest of Ireland.
The rest of the country will have to wait until just after sunrise on the
morning of Monday, May 5th, 2600! We'll be organising eclipse trips out of
Ireland before then, though, just like our highly successful trips to Bulgaria
in 1999 and Turkey in 2006!
2. Public Lecture: The Billion Euro
Telescope
Astronomy Ireland welcomes an international speaker
for its May Public Lecture about a billion euro telescope, the ALMA Project in
Chile!
Dr John Richer from the University of Cambridge is the UK Project Scientist
for ALMA, and he will explain in this lecture how the facility will allow
astronomers to peer deep inside star-forming regions of galaxies, otherwise
invisible to telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope. It will enable
transformational research into the physics of the cold Universe, probe the first
stars and galaxies, and directly image the formation of planets.
ALMA - short for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array
- is an extremely important project in science and when completed it can
effectively configure its 50 individual telescopes to act as a single large
telescope 16km across! It is the biggest and most expensive ground-based
astronomical project being built at over a billion euro already.
The lecture will take place in Trinity College Dublin next Monday, May
13th, at 8pm.
To book tickets or to order DVDs, please click
HERE or call (01) 890 11
11.