2012 was the first opportunity for MBO to participate in National Science Week, and we did it by running a series of public lectures at the observatory in association with the ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO). We were very lucky to have 5 enthusiastic and knowledgeable researchers from CAASTRO come out to Emerald to speak. An on-going feature of MBO has been our close ties with Melbourne’s astronomy research community which has both inspired young members of our community to pursue astronomy as a career but also allowed researchers to share their excitement about their subject.
The program was
Monday 13th August: Professor Warrick Couch (Swinburne)
“ELTs: the next generation of very large optical/infrared telescopes”
Tuesday 14th August: Stefan Oslowski (Swinburne)
“Pulsars – clocks in space”
Wednesday 15th August: Dr David Lagattuta (Swinburne)
“Holding up a (gravitational) lens to the Universe”
Thursday 16th August: Dr Edward Taylor (University of Melbourne)
“The cosmic perspective”
Friday 17th August: Professor Stuart Wyithe (University of Melbourne)
“The first galaxies”
It was also the opportunity for Bendigo Bank to present MBO a cheque for $2295 to purchase some Dobsonian telescopes to create our Astronomy classroom. Those telescopes are still in use and have been used to introduce thousands of people to astronomy.
