Professor Nemiroff's talk.

[jimmysnyder]

I had the pleasure of attending Professor Nemiroff's talk last night in the Fels Planetarium at the Franklin Institute in Phila.

Before his talk there was a meeting of the Rittenhouse Astronomical Society. This included a short talk aimed at young students on the big bang with artists' renderings of the big-bang time-line. Then there was a discussion of which planets are available for viewing and where to look for them. This was done using the planetarium projector. Gone is the ant-shaped projector that I recall from childhood. I made a note to myself to find out how it is being projected now, but I forgot to do it.

Then Professor Nemiroff gave his talk. He talked about the history of APOD and showed some of his favorite images from the site. He gave a little explanation of the image and how it was made and/or obtained.

Then we went upstairs to the observatory. They have a ten inch refractor which they aimed at the full moon. We all lined up and took a look. This is the largest telescope I have ever used. As was explained, there is no terminator when the moon is full and the terminator is the most interesting feature for the unwashed masses like me because that is where the contrast brings out the 3-d nature of the surface best.