Winter Talks
2011 - 2012
This year's talks will start on October 24th 2011.
Talks will run on Monday evenings from 7:30pm-8:30pm, in the Royal Observatory Edinburgh Lecture Theatre. Booking is not required for the talks, and tickets can be bought on the door. Season tickets will be available from the start of the series.
Tickets: £3 for adults, £1.50 for children/concessions. Season tickets: £20 for adults, £10 for children/concessions.
If you would like a paper copy of the programme, please email us at vis@roe.ac.uk with your postal address and we will send one out to you (we do not share our mailing list with any other organisations).
2nd April 2012
Why Infrared is the Future, Why the Past is Infrared
Sandy Rogers
Observing galaxies at great distance is equivalent to observing galaxies far in the past, due to the finite speed of light. The Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, was followed a few hundred million years later by the formation of the first stars and galaxies. By looking at the most distant galaxies in the universe, we can therefore measure the properties of the first galaxies in the universe. Since the universe has been expanding continually since the Big Bang, the universe - and hence the light travelling through it - is stretched during the "look-back" time to these first galaxies. Light that was emitted by these galaxies' young, hot, blue stars is therefore of longer near-infra-red wavelengths by the time it reaches our observatories. Hence, observing further into the past requires building telescopes with greater near-infra-red sensitivity. This talk will cover the science and technology associated with observing galaxies at times pushing back to the Cosmic Dawn.
Previous Talks in This Series
13th February 2012
Ernest Rutherford and the Birth of Modern Physics
Dr Bruce Kennedy
Join Bruce Kennedy to learn how we have moved from Ernest Rutherford’s simple experiment in 1909 to current research at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN leading the way in our understanding of the structure of atoms. This talk is part of the STFC Talking Science Programme. You can watch video clips about Bruce Kennedy and his work at Backstage Science
24th October 2011
Our Universe - Through the Eyes of Astronomers
Prof. Ian Robson
Mankind has mapped the heavens since the earliest of times and just over four hundred years ago, Galileo Galilei looked through a rudimentary telescope and saw wonders that fundamentally changed our understanding of the Cosmos. Since then we have learned much more about the Universe in which we live. This talk presents a pictorial overview of the Universe in which we live; what we know and what we know we don't know. It will illustrate the major discoveries since the time of Galileo and how they have gone hand-in-hand with technological advances of telescopes and instruments.
31st October 2011
The Night Sky in November
Russell Eberst
A look ahead to what the night skies of November have in store.
7th November 2011
An Introduction to Astronomy
Dr Vivienne Wild
An introduction to everything from distance scales to black holes.
14th November 2011
Dark Sky Places
Steve Owens
Dark sky tourism - bringing millions of people around the world to experience the wonders of astronomy.
Astronomer Steve Owens has recently returned from a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship to visit all of the Dar Sky Places in North America. In this talk Steve will highlight just what you can see under a truly dark sky, and describe how dark sky tourism is bringing millions of people around the world to experience the wonders of astronomy. To find out more why not read Steve's blog
21st November 2011
We are all made of stars
Salome Pereira de Matos
A journey through the life and fantastic death of stars to our human body.
28th November 2011
The Night Sky in December
Vinod Arumugam & William Taylor
What beauties do the dark skies of December hold
5th December 2011
Dark Matter – The Missing Universe
Dr Michael Hawkins
Reasons for believing in the existence of dark matter.
95% of the material Universe is in an unknown form. The nature of this 'Dark Matter' is one of the most challenging problems in modern cosmology. In this talk, reasons for believing in the existence of dark matter and measurements of its distribution will be described. The material which makes up the dark matter has been the subject of extensive debate among cosmologists, and the current ideas will be discussed.
12th December 2011
Space Shuttle – Triumph or Tragedy?
Dr John Davies
The story of why the American Space Shuttle came to be built the way it was and a review of some of the highs and lows of its 30 years of operations.
19th December 2011
The Night Sky in January
Russell Eberst
A look forward to the start of a new year of stargazing.
9th January 2012
Light from the Early Universe
Vinod Arumugam
Looking back in time, studying the light from the most distant galaxies.
The finite speed of light means that that the light from distant galaxies represent a view of the Universe as it was in the past. Studying the light from the most distant galaxies thus allows us to look back in time to when the Universe was a only few billion years old and trace the evolution of galaxies over time. In this talk, I will summarize what we have learnt about the early Universe and some of the techiniques used to study these distant galaxies. Vinod will also introduce some of the proposed future projects that will improve our view of the faint distant galaxies, helping us further understand the origins and evolution of the Universe.
16th January 2012
The Formation of Structure in the Universe
Alex Meade
How the current complexity in the Universe is the result of the evolution of initially tiny bumps in an otherwise very smooth early Universe.
All of the currently complexity in the universe is the result of the evolution of initially tiny bumps in an otherwise very smooth early universe. In this talk Alex will go though the currently accepted theory of how from these tiny bumps the universe can go on to produce larger bumps and how these eventually evolve into galaxies and how it is possible for planets to form around stars and thus provide an environment for life to develop and lead to the evolution of humanity. In order to do this Alex will draw on theoretical ideas, real observations and high power simulations. In the final part of the talk Alex will discuss the origin of the tiny bumps that need to have existed in the early universe in order for structure to have formed.
23rd January 2012
Surfing to the Stars
Dr Amy Tyndall
Ever wondered what scientists actually get up to once they graduate? ...because not everyone sits behind a computer in a UK University! Join Amy Tyndall to find out about life on the edge of astronomical research on 'La Isla Bonita' - the beautiful island of La Palma in the Canary Isles, where there is sun, sea, surf and stars in abundance. This talk is part of the STFC Talking Science programme.
30th January 2012
The Night Sky in February
Vinod Arumugam & William Taylor
Although the shortest month, there are still plenty of things to see in the night skies of February.
6th February 2012
Hubble and the Pale Blue Dot, 20 years later
Vincent Henault-Brunet
In 1990, as it was leaving the Solar System, the Voyager 1 spacecraft took a famous and humbling photograph of planet Earth: the 'Pale Blue Dot'. The Hubble Space Telescope was launched the same year. A little more than 20 years later, let's take a step back and look at how our understanding of the Universe has changed. With the end of the Space Shuttle era and Hubble coming towards the end of its service life, the time is also well chosen to discuss the future of space exploration and space astronomy
20th February 2012
The SKA - A Complex Engineering Challenge
Dr Hermine Schnetler
The SKA radio telescope is not only large in size, but also very complex. This talk will look at how engineers handle such huge systems by breaking them up into smaller parts. Why not take a look at the SKA website to find out more about this giant radio telescope.
27th February 2012
The Night Sky in March
Russell Eberst
The nights are getting shorter but there is still plenty to look out for in March, including the planet Mars.
*Please note, in our printed programme, the date for this talk is wrong. The talk will be on Monday 27th February and NOT 28th February as printed*
*CHANGE TO THE ADVERTISED PROGRAMME*
5th March 2012
Captian Cook and the Cosmic Yardstick
Prof. Martin Hendry
The next transit of Venus will be in June 2012, 8 years since the previous transit. Martin will look at how the transit of Venus was used historically to measure the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
12th March 2012
30 Doradus - A Stellar Nursery
Dr Chris Evans
Star formation and ejected stars!
19th March 2012
From Life to Death and Back Again - The Story of Supernova Explosions
Rebecca Bowler
A supernova explosion, the violent end to the life of massive stars, is one of the most energetic events in the universe. The existence of our planet Earth made up of heavy atoms like silicon and iron, as well as our carbon-based selves, is thanks to many supernovae expelling these elements into the galaxy. In this talk Rebecca will introduce what astronomers know about supernovae, from the first recorded observations thousands of years ago to the cutting edge research undertaken today. We will see inside an exploding star with the help of powerful computer simulations and explore answers to the question: what would happen if a supernova went off in our own galaxy today?
26th March 2012
The Night Sky in Summer
Vinod Arumugam & William Taylor
A look ahead to the summer night skies.