Program

Topic: Gadget Night Bring your astronomy-related or imaging garage-built objects, tools, ideas, new hardware, software to share with SDAA on our traditional Gadget Night – only this year we will have a ZOOM option as well as in-person show and tell. This includes astro-images, views of your home or TDS observatories, videos of telescope equipment, […]

Speaker: Neil Farber Topic: Lunar Exploration: What We Did, What We Saw, What We Learned Many people are not aware of the extensive investigation, both manned and unmanned, that NASA conducted of our nearest neighbor, the Moon. This talk will explore the unmanned landers and orbiters of the 1950s and 1960s, the six manned landings

Topic:  Fear and Loathing in the Heavens: The 1910 Return of Halley’s Comet Speaker: Richard J. Goodrich In 1705, Edmond Halley liberated humanity from the belief that comets were portents of doom; two centuries later, in 1910, as Halley’s Comet returned to perihelion, newspapers and magazines, religious leaders, misguided theorists, and shameless grifters managed to

Topic: AISIG and imaging programs within SDAA Speaker: David Wood and others on AISIG Past SDAA president and manager of SDAA’s TARO Observatory, David Wood, is reinvigorating the imaging group within SDAA. He and others will give an introduction to this field that is becoming more accessible to members given advances in cameras and software.

Topic: Signs in the Heavens: A Muslim Astronomer’s Perspective on Religion and Science Speaker: Dr. Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad The talk is based on Dr. Ahmed’s book of the same name which reviews some of the scientific achievements of the golden era of Islamic civilization and some important achievements in astronomy. Islamic astronomy played a significant role

Topic: Stellar Evolution and the Origin of Elements Speaker: Tim Thompson In-person at the Mission Trails Regional Park visitor center and online with Zoom. Tim will walk us through the history and physics of stellar evolution, starting with the big deal that everything we know about stars is derived from the light we see. Tim

Title: Focus on Palomar Observatory Speakers: Steve Flanders, Kin Searcy, others Palomar Observatory will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the dedication of the 200-inch Hale telescope on June 3, 2023. In commemoration, SDAA will focus on the history, construction, and science of the observatory and the iconic telescope that was the largest effective telescope in

Topic: Dark Matter – Observational Evidence and Experimental Searches Speaker: Dr. Eric Cotner Dr. Eric Cotner is a  data scientist and theoretical astroparticle physicist. Dr. Cotner graduated from UCLA in 2018 with a PhD in physics under the mentorship of Alexander Kusenko. The focus of his research was exotic dark matter candidates formed from scalar condensates

Topic: The Wacky World of Exoplanets and How We Discover Them Speaker: Dennis Conti Dennis Conti is a retired telecommunications professional and an amateur astronomer with a strong interest in exoplanet research. In 2015, he founded the AAVSO’s Exoplanet Section and has continued as section leader since. Dennis is also on the board of the