Wednesday 13 July 2016 at 11:00 pm - MONTHLY MEETING
Posted by: Michael Cook Category: Monthly Meetings Contact: draa-president@drastronomy.com
When: Wednesday 13 July 2016 at 11:00 pm Ends: Thursday 14 July 2016 at 01:00 am
Location: Whitby Library - Central Branch Meeting Room 1 A/B 405 Dundas Street West Whitby, Ontario
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Topics:What's Up in the Sky for July and August This presentation will provide an overview of how to point out select stars, constellations, and planets just with your eyes, as well as delve deeper into finding interesting celestial objects with binoculars or a telescope.
Supernova Light Echoes - Observing in Four Dimensions Presented by Professor Doug Welch, Department of Physics of Astronomy, McMaster University
This presentation is rescheduled from the June monthly meeting.
Scattered-light echoes from luminous transients (supernovae, luminous blue variables/supernova impostors) are unique in their ability to preserve an observable record of the state of a transient in outburst for centuries. Unlike conventional (i.e. intentional) time-series records, the presence of interstellar dust on the light echo ellipsoid from a given outburst allows photometric and spectroscopic study at any epoch where the scattered-light signal reaches a useful signal-to-noise threshold.
Additionally, dust located at different positions on an outburst's light-echo ellipsoid will preserve a record of the hemispheric emission of light from the outburst as seen from each dust location, allowing the degree of asymmetry of an outburst to be studied.
A more recent application of scattered-light echoes employs the fact that multiple outbursts of high-amplitude, unstable, luminous variables each produce their own light-echo ellipsoids and dust located on such ellipsoids provides an opportunity for multiple outbursts to be studied at the same (modern) epoch.
This talk will provide a brief summary of the evolution of light echoes from use as a tool to map out interstellar dust around luminous events to their richer and more recent use of investigating the outbursts themselves. Important findings from observations of scattered-light echoes regarding SN1987A, Cas A, and eta Car will be highlighted and near-term prospects for new work and new observational opportunities will be presented.
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