in the seat: new york astronomy seminar

Session name: 20061207.1900

This Thursday evening I attended a NYSkies Astronomy Seminar with Kin where three presenters spoke on various topics. First was Dr. Alfred Bennun, retired professor of Biochemistry of Rutgers University. Dr. Bennun, visiting from Argentina, began a talk about a process which could describe the continuum from the Planck energy limit to today's Cosmic Microwave Background. John Pazmino delivered a presentation about the "Wedge of Light", a design element of the new World Trade Center. During memorial hours between 8:46 am to 10:29am EDT on every 11 Sept, the Sun is supposed to illuminate an area of this campus. John discussed the local horizon and buildingscape of the surrounding area and showed celestial maps illustrating the Sun's altitude and azimuth at the bookmarked timestamps. Finally, Claudio Velez provided an informal description of his recent work at Kitt Peak, where he was collecting data for light curves of various stars, and descriptions of cataclysmic variables.

I met some familiar faces from last meeting as well as saw many more. The turnout of 17 persons doubled the size of the last one. Typically I'm not one for meetings but this is informal with good spirit and good pacing. I'm sure I'll attend again.