Monthly Archives February 2024

MAS March Meeting

The April 2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Prepare to be Gobsmacked!

March 2024 MAS Monthly Meeting

Bob Hamers and Jeff Shokler will help you prepare for your total eclipse experience by sharing the insights, tips, and lessons learned from their own eclipse experiences. During the talk, they’ll help you consider your eclipse viewing and/or imaging goals, discuss the many ways one can enjoy experiencing a total solar eclipse (including the numerous phenomena to keep an eye out for), and share important safety considerations.

If photographing the eclipse is one of your goals, they’ll also talk about the kinds of imaging gear that is most appropriate for photographing total eclipses, and how to plan and prepare for taking pictures – particularly under the demanding, tight timelines total eclipses present imagers...

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MAS February Meeting

Chasing ghost particles: searching for neutrinos from high-energy sources in real time.

MAS February 2024 Monthly Meeting - Jessie Thwaits

Neutrinos are tiny, nearly massless particles that interact very rarely. Because of this, astrophysical neutrinos can travel very far, all the way to the South Pole, carrying information directly from their sources. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has detected these astrophysical neutrinos, but only a few sources have been identified thus far. We search for these neutrinos from transient sources – sources that vary in their brightness over time, such as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), supernovae, novae, or mergers of compact objects. These sources often have very energetic processes happening inside them to accelerate particles and produce these neutrinos...

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