ASTRONOMY IRELAND MAILING LIST - www.astronomy.ie (The all-Ireland astronomy club, magazine and Shop) --------------------------------------------------- 1. FREE GR17 PUBLIC LECTURE TICKETS FREE TO YOUNG PEOPLE The organisers of the prestigious "17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation" that takes place in Dublin next week have kindly given us FREE tickets for Kip Thorne and Roger Penrose Public Lectures next week in the RDS. Prof Petros Florides (GR17 Local Committee Chairman, at TCD) is impressed by the work that Astronomy Ireland does to bring our subject to the attention of young people and he wants the tickets to go to such young people. A noble gesture for which we are most grateful. If you are a student or young person with an interest in black holes, relativity, gravitation or modern physics you will find the talks by these leading world experts fascinating. The first talk is on Monday (July 19) at 8pm: Prof. Kip Thorne - "Probing the Universe and Black Holes with Gravitational Waves" The second talk is on Friday (July 23) at 8pm: Prof. Sir Roger Penrose - "Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in Modern Physical Theories" Both talks are in the RDS Concert Hall, Dublin 4 at 8pm. Given the short time please email if you would like one of the FREE tickets. The supply is limited so tickets will be issued on a first come first served basis. You can then pick up the tickets at our Astronomy Shop in Dublin today until 5:30pm, Saturday 12pm-6pm or Monday 9:30am-5:30pm (contact me early if you need to make other arrangements e.g. if you live far from Dublin). Map and directions: www.astronomy.ie/map.html "Non young people" can still buy tickets to the event (they are reported to be selling well) at www.gr17.com priced 20euros each. It should be one of the lecture highlights of the year. HAWKING You may have heard in the news that Stephen Hawking is a last minute addition to the programme for the professional conference running all week. He is apparently to admit that he was wrong about his 1976 theory on how information can be lost in a black hole and will thus loose a bet he and Kip Thorne made with another American astrophysicist the prize being an encyclopaedia. While Hawking's new theory will not be publicly released (in Dublin) until next week (July 21 I believe) details have leaked out and even yours truly has been interviewed on radio about it! I found 150 articles(!) about it today by searching www.google.ie with "black hole theory wrong 2004", here's a few links: http://science.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=25891 http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996151 http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996151 It is a credit to the local organising committee for GR17 that with a major event to organise for 500 scientists around the world that they still found time to avail of the services of two world renowned figures and gave the general public a chance to hear them explain their work. Also, congratulations on bringing such a prestigious international conference to Ireland, we have a proud heritage in this area, Fitzgerald in TCD a hundred years ago, J.L. Synge (whom I have heard Hawking refer to), come to mind immediately. 2. SUNSPOTS Several groups of nice sunspots are now visible on the Sun - for those of you who equipped yourself for solar viewing for the June 8 Venus Transit. No aurora alerts yet for night time skies, but keep an eye on the northern sky just in case. NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN WITH BINOCULARS OR TELESCOPES - fit them securely with AstroSolar filters available from our Shop. Do send in any photos for the Gallery Pages of our magazine. 3. INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ON VIEW We still have until July 24 to see ISS blaze across the sky each evening. I've only seen it twice so far since July 9 due to cloud, but I know others have had more luck. Tonight's time is 11:53pm. Call the Newslines every day after 12noon for the time to see it that night: 1550-111-442 Background details of ISS at www.astronomy.ie/iss.html Regards and clear skies, David Moore, Chairman, Astronomy Ireland. Editor "Astronomy & Space" magazine. www.astronomy.ie Astronomy Shop: Tel (01) 847 0777 Mon-Sat