December 15, 2003
of black holes and chocolate chip cookies
The second friday of every month, the physics and astronomy department of Agnes Scot college holds a lecture in their Bradley Observatory. This past friday, clunkyrobot was in attendance, mixing it up with the local intellectuals. The guy in front of us took notes on a yellow legal pad. It was awesome.
Cecilia Burnbaum lectured on the anatomy of a star, how they live, and how they die. She spoke about black holes, and how at the center of every galaxy we've looked at there lives a super massive black hole. Including our own galaxy.
After Dr. Burnbaum spoke, those in attendance were allowed to look through the observatory's 30inch Bell Telescope. We were able to view a very clear image of Saturn, complete with dramatic harsh shadow cast across it's rings by the sun. It was a very good feeling. Looking with my own eyes, the farthest I've ever seen. Looking out so far into our solar system. It's really there, in case you were wondering. I checked.
few pictures:
::click for bigger::
I like the gallery design.
Posted by: c.a. at December 15, 2003 9:00 PM
hi Christian.
sorry it has taken so long to respond, but i've been out of town since
Agnes Scott. and now i see that your
email address is bouncing back messages.
i hope you enjoyed the talk even if the the animations didn't work!!!!
if you're interested, a web version of my talk is at:
http://www.valdosta.edu/phy/astro/pl_shows/bh_2001/bh/index.html
and thanks for the Lomberg link. beautiful stuff!! and i enjoyed your
site, too--i'd like to use your stepping through
the universe in my ASTRO 1000 class next
fall.
you mentioned in your site the farthest your have seen--through the
telescope. want to see the farthest thing seen by the naked eye?
find the constellation Andromeda and then look for the Andromeda
galaxy. it's up fairly early in the evening now. the galaxy is
2.6 million light-years away. so when you look at it, the photons
coming in your eyes have been traveling toward earth since before
our species evolved. in astronomy, it's not the image you can see
with your eyes that is overwhelming--it's what you know about it!
good luck! and happy new year.
DrB
>Dr Barnbaum,
>sorry to bother you, I was doing some research on the planetarium
>shows at Agness Scott, I'll be attending your show =B3Black Holes: A
>Dance with Gravity=B2=A0 tomorrow and stumbled on to your web page
>Beauty or Beast? The Art in Mathematics. What an awesome page! I
>went to art school here in Atlanta, but have always been fascinated
>my mathematics and astronomy, and only recently have I overcome my
>fear of math. I can now appreciate complex mathematics much in the
>same way I would a work of art.
>
>I have been influenced by the works of artist Jon Lomberg, who
>worked closely with Carl Sagan, and did most of the artwork for
>Sagan's series Cosmos. I remember his painting of the milky way in
>Cosmos from when I was a little kid, and it still blows me away to
>this day.=A0
>Lomberg's website is located here:
>http://www.jonlomberg.com/
>
>I have a web page that I put some math and science inspired artwork
>on from time to time, it's nothing on the scale of Lomberg, and it
>tends to be more cartoonish than anything, but if you have a chance
>I'd be honored to have you look at it.
>http://www.clunkyrobot.com
>
>thanks for your time
>christian
