Friday 18th March 2016 – John Drummond – Interacting Galaxies & Following Comets
8pm on Friday 18th March we are fortunate to have a guest speaker visiting from New Zealand, John Drummond will be giving us two 30 minute talks for the price of one!
Deeply Imaging Interacting Galaxies to Detect Tidal Features
Luminous features surrounding peculiar galaxies have been imaged since the early 1900s. Their nature has become clearer as our understanding of galaxy evolution developed in the light of merger models from the Toomre brothers’ work in the 1970s. I present findings after deeply imaging southern galaxies in an attempt to detect tidal streams in galactic halos resulting from gravitational interactions and passages between galaxies of similar or disproportional mass ratios. These images of many hours’ exposure time were subjected to severe processing and then inverted to reveal as much tidal disruption as possible.A Brief Overview of My Comet Work at Possum Observatory, New Zealand
The Southern Hemisphere is in a unique geographic position to observe southern comets that are below our northern cousins’ horizons. This short presentation discusses some of the work done on comets from Possum Observatory in New Zealand. Images, science and visual observing will be discussed.
John Drummond is the vice president of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand (RASNZ) and owner/operator of Possum Observatory – near Gisborne, NZ. He has a Master of Science (Astronomy) degree from Swinburne University (Melbourne) and is a school teacher. Interests include astronomy and surfing. John is also a contributing editor of the Australian Sky & Telescope magazine.
John Drummond from @RAS_NZ talking about his comet work at Possum Observatory. pic.twitter.com/M0urqC00O8
— Mount Burnett Obsvy (@MBObservatory) March 18, 2016
John Drummond pointing out the kiwi in the Milky Way in this excellent photo of his. pic.twitter.com/QSul9yjNE1
— Mount Burnett Obsvy (@MBObservatory) March 18, 2016
John Drummond presenting on deep imaging of galaxies & tidal interactions. pic.twitter.com/pIbKVLSXkI
— Mount Burnett Obsvy (@MBObservatory) March 18, 2016
Following the talk and supper there will be viewing through the MBO telescopes (weather permitting).
Members’ Night is on every Friday night commencing at 8PM (doors open 7:30PM). Members and their guests are always welcome.
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