- This event has passed.
SAAO Cape Town Open Night
September 14 @ 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
The 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 physics. Then, visitors will be given an introduction to the historic McClean telescope, the observatory museum, and the library. If the weather is clear, there will be a chance for stargazing using telescopes set up for the night.
Please email cptbookings@saao.ac.za or call +27 21 447 0025 if you have any queries regarding bookings and tours for Cape Town Open Nights.
Speaker: Carel van Gend
Carel studied at the University of Cape Town and received a PhD in particle physics in 1998. Since then he has worked as a computational scientist in a variety of fields including medical physics, biochemistry and immunology. For the last decade he has worked at the SAAO, helping to automate and roboticize some of the telescopes in Sutherland.
When he’s not marveling at the skies above or tinkering on his computer, he likes to alarm his neighbours by playing the trumpet.
Abstract:
In this talk I’ll discuss the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, one of the (many!) exciting projects under development in the world of astronomy. In particular I’ll look at what it aims to do, the deluge of data that is going to be produced, and how we plan to interact with it. In the process I’ll discuss our very own Intelligent Observatory project, and how we aim (intelligently) to get the most out of our dark skies and array of telescopes.