Madison Astronomical Society

Month: October 2020

  • Virtual Moon Over Monona Terrace

    Friday October 23, 2020, 7:30pm – 9:30pm – Virtual Event

    FREE Virtual Event

    Friday, October 23, 2020
    7:30 – 9:30PM


    Moon Over Monona Terrace is going virtual! Take a live guided tour of our Moon and other celestial objects in our solar system with members of the Madison Astronomical Society (MAS). Program Highlights:

    • Live Telescope Feed (weather permitting) – Explore the surface of the Moon and other celestial objects through telescopes provided by MAS members.
    • Sky Talk (planetarium simulation) – Explore the night sky and the wonders of astronomy, led by Geoff Holt, Planetarium Director, Madison Memorial H.S.
    • YouTube Channel (informational and educational videos) – Visit the Monona Terrace YouTube channel and select from several videos, presented by members of MAS, to enhance your event experience.

    Advanced registration is required through Eventbrite, and an event link will be emailed following registration. Prior installation of the Zoom application is recommended to participate.

    REGISTER VIA EVENTBRIGHT

  • Interstellar laser-sailing: problems and solutions

    Friday October 9, 2020, 7:00pm – UW Space Place

    The October MAS meeting will be a virtual meeting hosted with Zoom.

    Speaker: Victor Brar, Van Vleck Assistant Professor of Physics, UW-Madison.

    In this talk Dr. Brar will summarize recent efforts that have been put into motion which aim to send spacecraft to Alpha Centauri at relativistic speeds, with a goal of receiving data back within our lifetimes. Those proposed missions hinge on developing laser sail technology, in which a high power (~100GW) laser propels a reflective spacecraft. He will discuss the stringent design parameters that the spacecraft must satisfy, and describe how those parameters can be achieved using recently developed ‘metasurface’ technology.

    Dr. Brar is a graduate of Middleton High School (class of 2000). He did his undergraduate work at MIT and received his Ph.D. in physics from UC Berkeley in 2010. He has been with the UW-Madison since 2016. Dr. Brar’s research aims to investigate and develop nano- and atomically-structured materials for the purpose of discovering new electronic phenomena, novel thermodynamic behavior, and new optical effects with broad device-level applications.