San Diego Astronomy Association (SDAA) sponsors speakers on a wide range of astronomy topics on the third Wednesday of every month at the Mission Trails Regional Park Visitors Center. The Program meeting begins at 7:00 PM. Each attendee receives one free door prize ticket. After announcements and a small amount of business, the audience is treated to the featured presentation. At the close of the meeting the door prizes are presented. The event is open to the public. The Mission Trails Regional Park Visitors Center is at One Fr. Junipero Serra Trail, San Diego CA 92119. Call the park at 619-668-3281 for more information or visit http://www.mtrp.org.
Program meetings may also be held via Zoom, or as hybrid in-person/Zoom meetings. You can register in advance for the next Zoom meeting at the following link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMude-sqz4sGN1qXv7qSlBwnYpgaQEZZ8LU
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Please contact Dave Wood if you have an questions, comments, or ideas for the Program Meetings.
Meetings since July 2020 are being archived on the SDAA YouTube page.
April 19, 2021 Program Meeting
Speakers: Dr. Xiaohui Fan, Dr. Jinyi Yang, Dr. Feige Wang Topic: The Earliest Supermassive Black Holes in the Universe A trio of astronomers from the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory present new results: Regents’ Professor Xiaohui Fan “Discovery of the brightest quasar in the early universe”, Strittmatter Fellow Dr. Jinyi Yang “Pōniuāʻena”, the first known billion solar mass black hole at reionization”, and NASA Hubble Fellow Dr. Feige…
March 17, 2021 Program Meeting
Speaker: Dr. Daniel Apai – Steward Observatory Topic: Exoplanets / Astrobiology Dr. Daniel Apai is a recent recipient of NASA’s ICAR Astrobiology grant. This is an inaugural effort focusing on the challenging questions in astrobiology. Daniel’s research focuses on exoplanets, with a particular emphasis on habitable planets and planetary systems. Heleads large programs to understand the formation of habitable planetary systems EOS, search for giant and earth-likeexoplanets Scorpion…
February 17, 2021 Program Meeting
Speaker: Jimmy Lilly – Steward Observatory Topic: Identifying Prestellar Cores in Molecular Clouds Jimmy Lilly was a 2019-2020 Lucas Scholarship recipient and majored in Astronomy / Physics. He graduated in May 2020. He works with Yancy Shirley from the Department of Astronomy on “Characterizing Physical Properties Associated with Hierarchical Structure in Star-Forming Regions.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8jaw8EwJYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFZ5rKIMxs0
January 20, 2021 Program Meeting
Speaker: Maria Galloway-Sprietsma – Steward Observatory Topic: Pulsar Timing Maria Galloway-Sprietsma is a Lucas Scholarship recipient 2020-2021. She is working with Dr. Yancy Shirley, Steward Observatory on a study of deuterated ammonia (NH2D) in star-forming region Cepheus L1251. They hope to explore the possibilities of using deuterated ammonia as a dense gas tracer, and believe that it can tell them more about the chemical and structural evolution of…
Dec 16, 2020 Program Meeting
Dr. Alex Ji: The First Stars Dr. Alex Ji is a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Observatories. Alex is a near-field cosmologist, studying nearby stars and galaxies to understand the first stars and galaxies, the origin of the elements, and the history of the Milky Way. Alex’s main lockdown activity has been eating Trader Joe’s snacks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIUgnQPAKOY https://youtu.be/B8W-0VzFa90
November 18, 2020 Program Meeting
Speaker: Ryan Rubenzahl – Caltech Topic: Measuring the Speed of Stars More Precisely Than Your Car’s Speedometer The “doppler method” of detecting planets orbiting other stars requires precise measurements of the speeds of those distant stars. If we can see a star oscillating towards and away from us, we can infer that an unseen planet is tugging on its parent star as it orbits. This method successfully found…
October 21, 2020 Program Meeting
Speaker: Mia de Los Reyes Topic: The Loneliest Galaxies in the Universe Most of the matter in the universe is located in long and thin structures called “cosmic filaments” that stretch across the universe in web-like formations. However, some galaxies live in the much emptier spaces between cosmic filaments, called cosmic voids. By comparing the chemical makeup of void galaxies and filament galaxies, we can learn about how…
September 16, 2020 Program Meeting
Speaker: Steve Hallmann, SDAA Topic: Dark Matter and Dark Energy Steve Hallman updates SDAA on the latest theories for dark matter and dark energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qitPBynwZ5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg8QEWDExao&t=4s
August 19, 2020 Program
Speaker: Dr. Nicholas Galitzki ( UCSD) Topic: Cosmic Microwave Background at the Simons Observatory Dr. Nicholas Galitzki began his astronomy career at the California Institute of Technology where he earned his B.S. in astrophysics in 2008. While at Caltech he was involved in two research projects, one with a lunar seismometer developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories and another working with a weather monitoring station for the proposed…