Hello all!

I just wanted to remind everyone that the public viewing
times on the UT telescopes have now moved to 7 to 9 p.m.
for the remainder of the year. Also, there will be no viewing
the week of Thanksgiving.

As always, maps, etc. are available at:
http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/public/viewing.html

Regards,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

The next "Hot Science Cool Talks" lecture is coming up on
Friday October 30 and will be with Dr. Sally Ride, the first
American woman in space. You can find out more about the
lecture at the link below:

http://www.esi.utexas.edu/outreach/ols/lectures/Ride/


Regards,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy Dept.

I thought some of you might be interested in this if you aren't
already on their email list (subscription info for there announcements
is at the bottom of the email).

Cheers,
Lara



"Icy Mysteries of Mars Revealed" by Dr.Jack Holt

Research Scientist, Jackson School of Geosciences, Institute for Geophysics

Friday, September 11, 2009 at 7:00 pm (Central Time)
Reception and activities 5:45 pm, come early and see the exhibits!
Welch Hall (WEL) Rm. 2.224

For lecture location: www.utexas.edu/maps/main/buildings/wel.html
<http://www.utexas.edu/maps/main/buildings/wel.html>

Free to the public

DESCRIPTION:  Dr. Holt and his scientific colleagues have discovered
enormous reserves of frozen water on Mars. Using radar from an orbiting
satellite, they have found glaciers up to half a mile thick in the
Martian mid-latitudes where no glaciers should exist. These bodies of
ice are apparently relicts of Mars’ ancient climate and have survived by
being buried by a thin layer of rock debris. These glaciers may be
remnants from a period when Mars’ poles faced the sun and the
mid-latitudes were much colder. Supplies of frozen water are one key to
human exploration of the red planet, as they could provide both the
water and solar energy needed to make oxygen for breathing and hydrogen
for fuel. More details can be found at www.esi.utexas.edu
<http://www.esi.utexas.edu/> .

SCHEDULE: Friday, September 11, 2009
5:45-6:45 pm: Interactive exhibits and refreshments, outside Welch 2.224
6:00-6:45 pm: Teacher Workshop, Welch 2.246
7:00-8:15 pm: "Icy Mysteries of Mars Revealed" Welch 2.224

PARKING:  Due to construction projects on campus, parking continues to
be adventurous, and here’s some info to make it easier:

Option 1:  Parking in the San Jacinto Parking Garage on San Jacinto and
24th St. is available at a discounted rate. Lecture attendees will be
charged $1
for parking, upon exiting the garage, but must have a parking coupon
that can be picked up at the lecture. Do not park on the ground floor of
the parking garage or you will be ticketed. Go up the ramp and pull a
ticket to enter the garage.

Option 2: Look for spots along 24th St. east of Welch Hall.  Check signs
posted
at each spot to be sure the days/times listed for needing a permit
are expired.
Do not park in handicapped or loading zones.

For more parking info, please use the map
at: http://www.utexas.edu/parking/maps/map.htm

WEBCAST SYSTEM: For those that cannot attend, the lecture will be
broadcast live over the Internet at 7:00 pm Central Time. Please note
that we are still test-driving the webcasting system for this event, and
we recommend logging into the site at least 15 minutes before to get set
up. For more information about the webcast,
see http://www.esi.utexas.edu/outreach/ols/webcasts.php?vol=61 _
_
To subscribe or unsubscribe from this newsletter visit:
https://utlists.utexas.edu/sympa/info/esi-outreach
Click on Subscribe or Unsubscribe, do not log in.

Hello all!

Public viewing nights here on the UT campus telescopes
resumes this week. I've posted the schedule on the
website: http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/public/viewing.html

Note that we won't have a star party at Painter on Saturday
nights when there is a home football game. The game for
this Saturday is scheduled for 6 p.m., so there will NOT be
a star party that evening.

I also wanted to mention that the Harry Ransom Center will
be opening their new exhibition "Other Worlds: Rare
Astronomical Works" next Tuesday. You can learn more
about the exhibit and the really cool stuff they will have
on display here:
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/2009/astronomical/

There will also be some special events in conjunction with
the exhibit that I will send more information about soon.

Clear skies,
Lara

Hello all! I hope you haven't wilted too much during this
very hot summer we've been having.

I just wanted to send out a reminder that the summer star
parties are now finished, but we'll be starting up the fall
viewing in just a few weeks. I'll send out another message
with the fall dates and times soon!

Stay cool,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

Hello all!

Summer public viewing on the UT campus telescopes starts
this week! The times will be from 9:00 to 10:30 p.m at both
telescopes. Wednesday nights are at the 16-inch reflector at
RLM and Friday and Saturday nights are at the 9-inch refractor
at Painter Hall.

Additional information, including maps and parking are available
at our website:
http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/public/viewing.html

Clear skies!
Lara

Sorry I didn't get this out yesterday, but here are some other area
events that you all might be interested in.

Cheers,
Lara

=================================

Austin Astronomical Society celebrates Galileo's discoveries during 100 Hours of
Astronomy

Austin and Burnet, Texas--Join members of the Austin Astronomical Society as
they celebrate 100 Hours of Astronomy. This event celebrates the 400th
anniversary of Galileo's discoveries of the Rings of Saturn, the mountains on
the Moon and the four biggest moons of Jupiter. 1000's of amateur and
professional astronomers, research observatories and others around the globe
hope to get as many people to the eyepieces of telescopes as possible between
April 2 and 5.

There are several events around town and the Society's observatory, Eagle Eye
Observatory at Canyon of the Eagles Nature Lodge and Park between April 2 and
April 5.

April 2: Ruiz Library, 1600 Grove Blvd, Austin, TX 7 to 9p.m.
April 3: Eagle Eye Observatory, near Burnet, TX dark to 10 p.m.*
April 4: Eagle Eye Observatory, near Burnet, TX dark to 10p.m.*
April 4: Central Market, 38th and Lamar, Austin, TX 7 to 10p.m.

*For directions visit: http://www.austinastro.org/CoE.html#directions. Also, the
star parties may last longer than 10 p.m.

For more information on the Austin Astronomical Society visit
www.austinastro.org. For more information on on 100 Hours of Astronomy visit
www.100hoursofastronomy.org.

Hello all! We've decided to tweak the public viewing schedule
a little for the remainder of the semester. This week the Wednesday
night at RLM will still be at 8 to 10, but Painter will switch to 8:30 to 10:30
this week and will remain at that time for the remainder of the semester
(May 9 will be the final night for the spring semester).

The Painter Hall viewing this week also coincides with the 100 hours of
astronomy, which you can learn more about here: http://100hoursofastronomy.org
The Saturday night viewing also falls during the 24 hours global star party.

McDonald Observatory will also be participating in the 100 hours with an
open house and with a webcast from the Hobby Ebery Telescope.
You can find the schedule and links for the webcasts here:
http://100hoursofastronomy.org/component/content/article/34-site-navigation/75-l\
ive-24-hour-research-observatory-webcast

And finally, next Wednesday (April 8), the public viewing on the 16-inch at
RLM will also host the first of three Yuri's Night parties in Austin to
celebrate the
anniversary of the first manned spaceflight (April 12, 1961) and the first
shuttle
flight (April 12, 1981).  We'll open the roof early (around 7 p.m.) and stay
open
late (to around 11 p.m.) and have entertainment, food and educational materials.
http://www.austinyurisnight.com/

For the remainder of the semester (April 15 to May 6), the RLM telescope will
also move to the 8:30 to 10:30 schedule.

I hope some of you will be able to participate in some of these events!

Cheers,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

Hello all!

I just wanted to mention that we'll have a couple of activities at this
Saturday's Explore UT: http://www.utexas.edu/events/exploreut/

We'll have a table near RLM with a telescope with a solar filter, as
well as globes, handouts, etc. and I'll be up on the 16-in telescope
on the top of RLM showing Venus is the daytime (weather permitting
of course). Even if it is cloudy, you can come up and look at the
telescope and enjoy the view from our roof. I'll only close up if
it actually rains.

Also, since the time change is coming up this weekend, we'll be
changing the public viewing times to 8 to 10 p.m. for the rest of
the semester. We'll also be taking Spring Break off, so there
won't be viewing on March 18 (RLM) and March 20 and 21 (Painter).

Hope to see some of you soon!

Lara

The annual Board of Visitors Great Lecture is Astronomy will be presented
by Dr. Eiichiro Komatsu next Saturday,  February 7 at 1 p.m.

The free lecture will be at the Applied Computational Engineering and Sciences
(ACES)  Building in the Avaya Auditorium (ACES 2.302 - located on the corner
of  24th St. and Speedway). Dr. Komatsu will be giving the lecture titled,
"Frontiers in Cosmology." (See abstract below.)

There may be parking spaces near the ACES building, but please read
the signs carefully to avoid getting a parking ticket. There is pay parking
available at the Speedway and San Jacinto parking garages:
http://www.utexas.edu/parking/parking/visitor/

Hope some of you can make it!
Lara



******************************************************
"Frontiers in Cosmology"

Over the last 10 years, our understanding of the Universe has advanced
tremendously thanks to powerful theory and observations. We now know
how old our Universe is, and how much matter and energy there is in the
Universe, quite accurately.

However, the more we learn about the Universe, the more challenges we
seem to face: recent observations clearly indicate that we do not
understand 95 percent of energy/matter in the Universe today!

How about the history of the Universe? How much do we know about the
Universe when it was very young — perhaps as young as a tiny fraction of
a second old? Powerful development in theory and observations of
cosmology has finally made it possible to peer into the epoch before the
Big Bang — the period called Cosmic Inflation. How can we possibly “see”
such an early epoch?

It is often said that we are living in the Golden Age of Cosmology, but
at the same time we are living in an
extraordinarily challenging moment for Cosmology. What is the nature of
Dark Matter and Dark Energy? What powered the Big Bang? In this lecture
I will review the outstanding questions and recent developments —
Frontiers in Cosmology.

Hello all! Welcome to 2009, the International Year of Astronomy!

Public viewing starts up this week. Wednesday night viewing at
RLM will be from 7 to 9 p.m. to start the semester. We'll change
to 8 to 10 p.m. for March 11. There will be no viewing on March 18
and then we'll resume on March 25. The time will remain from 8 to 10
for the remainder of the semester. The last public night for the spring
will be May 6.

The Painter Hall Telescope will be open on Friday and Saturday nights
from 7 to 9 p.m. this week through March 7. The times will move to
8 to 10 p.m. on March 13 and 14 and the telescope will not be open on
March 20 and 21. Viewing will resume on March 27 and continue to
May 9.

Location, telescope, parking and weather cancellation information is
available on the website: http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/public/viewing.html

I've also put an observing calendar and resource guide for the IYA up in
the files section, which some of you might find interesting.
It's a MS Word document:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/UT-Astronomy/files/

Clear skies!
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

Hello all!

I just wanted to send out a reminder that the public viewing
nights are finished for the year. We'll be starting back up in
late January, so I'll send out a message with the starting
dates and time a little before then.

Stay tuned for announcements for our special events
to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy in 2009!

Happy holidays,

Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy Dept.

Hello all!

I just wanted to remind everyone that we will not have any
public viewing this week because of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Next week will be the final week for 2008, but we'll be back
up and running in late January 2009!

Happy Thanksgiving,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy Dept.

Hello all!

Due to the time change, all star parties have changed to
7 pm to 9 pm for the remainder of the semester.
Also, just a reminder that we will not have any public
viewing the week of Thanksgiving.

As always, the schedule, directions, etc. are
available on our website: http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/


Cheers,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

Hello all! Here is the schedule for the fall semester viewing:

Wednesday Night at RLM

September 3 to October 29
8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

November 5 to December 3
7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
(No viewing November 26)

and

Friday and Saturday Nights at Painter Hall

September 5 to November 1
8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

November 7 to December 6
7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
(No viewing November 28 and 29)

Please note that there will be no star parties on
Saturday nights when the UT football team has an
evening home game.
Please see MackBrown-TexasFootball.com
for current schedule information.

Maps and parking information is available here:
http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/public/viewing.html

And weather cancellation information will be recorded
on 232-4265 30 to 60 minutes before the scheduled
start time only on evenings when the viewing is
canceled.

Clear skies!
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

Hello all!

The UT campus public viewing for the summer will start back
up this week. As always, you can find the current information on
our website here: http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/public/viewing.html

The RLM telescope will be open on Wednesday nights from 9 to 10:30
starting this week and finishing August 6. The Painter Hall Telescope
will be open Friday and Saturdays through August 16th. There will be
no public viewing on July 4 and 5 at Painter.

Stay cool!
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

Hello all! I just wanted to remind everyone that this will be
the final week of public viewing for this semester, but we
will be resuming in June for summer viewing. I'll send along
a message with the details as we get closer and I have a
schedule worked out with whomever the TA is.

And now for the lecture info:

Kip Thorne, well-known black hole physicist and author, is coming to The
University of Texas this Friday. His lecture, "The Warped Side of the
Universe: From the Big Bang to Black Holes," is free and open to the public.

The lecture will be Friday, May 2, at 3 p.m. in Welch Hall, room 2.224.
Reduced-rate parking ($4) will be available in the San Jacinto and Speedway
campus parking garages.

Thorne is the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech. He
is one of the world's leading experts on the astrophysical implications of
Einstein's theory of general relativity. He has long been applauded for his
ability to communicate abstract astrophysical ideas in a way that is easy to
understand and entertaining to listen to.

Thorne's ideas about wormholes and time-travel have been used in the movie
"Contact" and in the upcoming movie produced by Steven Spielberg,
"Interstellar."

Cheers,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy Dept.

Hello all!

Our next public lecture will be next Wednesday at 7:30
in Welch 2.224. This lecture is part of the National Academies'
Space Studies Board Seminar Series and will be presented
by Professor Christopher Chyba from Princeton University.
The talk is titled: "The Possibility of Life Elsewhere in the
Universe".

More information is available here:
http://www.as.utexas.edu/chyba/

Afterwards, weather permitting, both campus
telescopes (RLM and Painter) will be open to
view the total lunar eclipse.

More information on the eclipse is available here:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/LEmono/TLE2008Feb21/TLE2008Feb21.html

And more information on our telescopes is available here:
http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/public/viewing.html

Cheers,
Lara

Hello all!

As I mentioned in the email about spring viewing, we have two
public lectures this month. The first is this Saturday and is the
annual Great Lecture in Astronomy which is held in conjunction
with our Board of Visitors winter meeting. This year the speaker
is Dr. David Lambert (Director of McDonald Observatory) and the
talk title is "Heaven's Kitchens - Primordial Soup, Stellar Entrées,
and Galactic Dessert".

The talk will be in the ACES Avaya Auditorium (room 2.302)
from 1 to 2 p.m. this Saturday (Feb. 9).

More information and the abstract for the talk is available here:
http://www.as.utexas.edu/lectures/lambert_bov.html

I'll email about the second lecture once we get the web stuff
set up.

Cheers,
Lara

Yes, we're finally back up and running... and of course now the
weather looks rotten!

Wednesday Night Public Viewing will run January 23 - March 5
from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. and then after the time change we will
run March 19 - April 30 from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m.

Public Viewing on Friday and Saturday Nights at Painter will
run January 25 - March 8 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. and then
March 21 to May 3 will be 8:30 to 10:30 p.m.

I've also posted the schedule on the website:
http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/public/viewing.html

We have a few special public events coming up in February
and I'll forward more details about that soon. We'll also
have extended viewing hours on Wednesday February 20
to observe a total lunar eclipse.

Stay warm and dry this week!
Lara

Hello all! I just wanted to let everyone know that the public viewing is now
finished for the year. We'll be starting up in mid-to-late January for the
spring semester. I'll send another email at that time announcing the
dates and times in 2008!

Cheers,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

Hello all!

Since we've returned to standard time, the star party times
have all moved to 7 to 9 p.m. And just a reminder, there will
be no viewing the week of Thanksgiving. The final star parties
will be two weeks later (the first week of December).

Also, if you haven't been viewing Comet Holmes, be sure to
go out and take a look! Spaceweather.com has photos and
finder charts. We've been observing it on the campus telescopes
and I got a couple of pictures of it with the 16-inch last week,
which you can view here: http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/comet/index.html
They aren't anything fancy... I just attached at Canon Rebel to
the telescope with an eyepiece adapter. I'm still kind of
surprised that it worked at all!

Cheers,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

We've posted the Quicktime of the talk by Dr. John Mather -
http://www.as.utexas.edu/lectures/mather_devauc.html

Enjoy! If you have any problems, please send email to the
address at the bottom of the page because that will go
directly to our web person.

Cheers,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

This Friday, Professor Craig Wheeler will be presenting this
month's Environmental Science Institute "Hot Science - Cool Talks"
lecture. There will be some pre-lecture events as well. You can
find all the information here:

http://www.esi.utexas.edu/outreach/ols/lectures/Wheeler/

The talk will also be webcast if you can't attend in person
and have a fast internet connection.

BTW, we did end up recording the talk by John Mather from last
week. I'll email this list when we get it up on the website.

Cheers,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

Everyone is invited to attend! I don't know what the plans are right
now for streaming and/or recording the lecture, but if we do anything
like that I'll forward the details.

Cheers,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy


John C. Mather, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2006)
"From the Farm to the Nobel Prize: Deciphering the Big Bang"
Antoinette de Vaucouleurs Public Lecture
October 11, 2007 in ACES Avaya Auditorium (room 2.302) 4:00 p.m.

Abstract:
The history of the universe in a nutshell, from the Big Bang to now, and on to
the future - John Mather will tell the story of how we got here, how the
Universe began with a Big Bang, how it could have produced an Earth where
sentient beings can live, and how those beings are discovering their history.
Dr. Mather grew up on the Dairy Research Station in Sussex County, New Jersey
where he developed his strong interest in science. At Nasa, he was Project
Scientist for the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, which measured
the spectrum (the color) of the heat radiation from the Big Bang, discovered hot
and cold spots in that radiation, and hunted for the first objects that formed
after the great explosion. He will explain Einstein's biggest mistake, show how
Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe, how the COBE mission was
built, and how the COBE data support the Big Bang theory. He will also show
NASA's plans for the next great telescope in space, the James Webb Space
Telescope. It will look even farther back in time than the Hubble Space
Telescope, and will look inside the dusty cocoons where stars and planets are
being born today. Planned for launch in 2013, it may lead to another Nobel Prize
for some lucky observer.

Hello all!

We're starting back up with the public viewing this week. RLM is
still on Wednesdays and Painter on Fridays and Saturdays, both
currently from 8 to 10 p.m. We'll change to 7 to 9 p.m. after the
change back to standard time.

As we've done the past couple of fall semesters, the Painter viewing
will not be held when there is a home football game that evening. The
times for some of the later home games haven't been announced, so you'll
have to check the schedule http://www.mackbrown-texasfootball.com/

All the viewing details are available on the web at:
http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/public/viewing.html

Cheers,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

Hello all!

The public viewing on the UT campus telescopes has finished for
the summer and will resume in early September. I'll send out an
email when we've decided on a schedule.

As an extra note, I'm sure most of you already know about this
if you've seen the email, but the "Mars Spectacular" email is
making the rounds again this summer. It is basically the same
message from 2003 recycled and now edited to make it sound like
Mars will appear as large as the full moon that night. Of course,
there is no truth to this at all. Mars will not be making a close
approach on the 27th of this month and it certainly won't look
as large as the full moon! However, there will be a lunar eclipse
on the morning of the 28th of August (because of the early hour
we won't be having a public viewing on our telescopes).

Cheers,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

Hello all!

The summer public viewing hours starts this week! The 16-in
reflector at RLM is open on Wednesday night from 9 to 10:30 p.m.
(no viewing July 4th) and the 9-inch refractor at Painter Hall
is open Fridays and Saturdays, also from 9 to 10:30 p.m.

Parking information, etc. is available here:
http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/

Have a great summer!
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy Dept.

Hello all!

I just wanted to remind everyone that there will be no viewing on
UT campus telescope this week because of spring break. Also,
because of the early time change, we'll be starting at 8 p.m.
for the rest of the semester.

Cheers,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy

Hello! I hope your 2007 is going well so far!

Public viewing on UT telescopes start up again this week. Wednesdays will be on
RLM and Fridays and Saturdays will be at Painter. All viewing is from 7-9 p.m.
The daylight saving time change has moved up a couple of weeks, so we'll change
star party times after spring break.

Information on parking and directions to the telescopes are available here:
http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/public/viewing.html

We also have two public lectures coming up. The first is this Friday at 7:30
p.m. in the ground floor lecture hall in RLM (room 4.102). The lecture will be
presented by Joel R. Primack, University of California, Santa Cruz and Nancy E.
Abrams, co-author and is titled: "The View from the Center of the Universe"

The second is on Saturday February 3rd at 1 p.m. in the ACES auditorium on
campus. It is the annual Board of Visitors "Great Lectures in Astronomy" talk.
This year is will be presented by Dr. Fritz Benedict, a Senior Research
Scientist here at UT. The title is "A Tale of Two Telescopes or Dancing with the
Stars". The abstract is available here:
http://outreach.as.utexas.edu/public/events.html

I think that about covers everything!

Cheers,
Lara Eakins
UT Astronomy Dept.