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NRF|SAAO Cape Town Open Night
January 11 @ 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
The NRF|SAAO Open Nights in Cape Town take place on the second and fourth Saturday of every month.
All Open Nights will start with a presentation on topics of astronomy or related science fields. Visitors will then be given an introduction to the history of the observatory, library, museum, and the 120 year-old McClean telescope. If the weather permits, stargazing will take place with McClean and smaller telescopes.
Please email cptbookings@saao.ac.za or call +27 21 447 0025 if you have any queries regarding bookings.
Speaker: Prof Oleg Malkov, Institute of Astronomy RAS
Oleg Malkov was born in Moscow in 1961. In 1978, he entered the Physics Faculty of Moscow State University (Astronomy Department) and graduated in 1984. From March 1984 he has been working at the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, currently as Head of Department of Physics of Stellar Systems. He also conducted scientific research and taught at academic institutions and observatories in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, South Africa, China, Ethiopia and several other countries. In 2004, he maintained a thesis in Astrophysics titled “Binary stars and the initial mass function”, and received the degree of Doctor of Sciences. He is an author of about 300 scientific papers. Oleg Malkov is a professor of astronomy at Moscow State University.
Title: Do single stars exist?
Abstract:
The study of binary stars is one of the most important tasks of modern astronomy. First of all, they are very numerous: most stars form in binary and multiple systems. In addition, binary systems are extremely important for determining the fundamental characteristics of stars. Finally, the binarity of stars can be detected in a dozen different ways. Using the 25 brightest stars in the sky as examples, we discuss the frequency of occurrence of binary and multiple systems. It is shown that single stars are quite rare. It is also shown that with the improvement of observational capabilities, the number of companions in stars previously thought to be single is steadily increasing.