BIG TELESCOPES: EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE FROM THE SOLAR SYSTEM TO THE BIG BANG
Professor Don Kurtz, astronomer, Centre for Space Research, Physics Department, North-West University
Thursday 22–Friday 23 January 9.15 am COURSE FEES R230; Staff and students R115
For most of the twentieth century two large telescopes led in astronomical research: the 2.5 m (‘100 inch’) Hooker Telescope and the 5 m (‘200 inch’) Hale Telescope – both in Southern California. Then, in the last thirty years, new technology has led to a plethora of telescopes with mirrors 8–10 m in diameter which have sprouted on remote mountains, including the South African Large Telescope near Sutherland. The biggest of all is the enormous 39 m European Extremely Large Telescope now under construction in Chile.
The first lecture will look at how optical telescopes work and how new technology has revolutionised their construction, operation and scientific abilities. The second lecture goes beyond the visible, looking at the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescopes near Carnarvon, South Africa, the James Webb Space Telescope which observes in the infra-red to see back to the time of the formation of the first stars after the Big Bang thirteen billion years ago, and gamma-ray telescopes that observe the biggest explosions since the Big Bang. These telescopes also study the atmospheres of some of the exoplanets around other stars, in the search for other life in the Universe. The new telescopes are among the most sophisticated machines ever imagined and built.
Lecture titles
- A century of the biggest optical telescopes
- Beyond the visible: astronomy from radio to gamma rays
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