Saturday Evening Astronomy Talks & Telescopes Viewing : SEPTEMBER 23, 2023

Since the first telescope was pointed at the sky, ground-based telescopes have time and time again revolutionized our understanding of the universe, how it works, and our place in it. The last generation of telescopes led to the first detections of black holes, demonstrated huge gaps in our understanding of fundamental physics, and proved that planets are ubiquitous around other stars.  But these discoveries have left us with tantalizing new questions. How do black holes form? What are the missing matter and forces driving the evolution of the universe? Is there life beyond our solar system? To answer these questions, we need new tools. The Giant Magellan Telescope is being designed and built to answer these questions we haven’t yet thought to ask. In this talk, I’ll introduce you to the goals, technology, and status of this new telescope being built in Chile’s Atacama Desert.  

The speaker, Dr. Rebecca Bernstein, is the Chief Scientist at the GMTO Corporation and plays a leading role in ensuring that the observatory and its instruments will enable scientists at the Founder institutions to meet the project’s scientific goals. She interfaces with the technical and scientific community and represents the project at scientific conferences around the world. She is an accomplished optical designer and builder of scientific instruments, having designed and built a high-resolution spectrograph for Magellan and carried out the optical design for several others.  She held professorships at the University of Michigan and the University of California, Santa Cruz before coming to GMTO. While at the University of California she led the design of a spectrograph for the Thirty Meter Telescope. She is a Staff Astronomer at the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution.

Image:  Giant Magellan Telescope - GMTO Corporation

Evening Schedule:

• The night begins at 5:30 PM with a talk given by our featured speaker.
• Immediately after the talk, there will be time to picnic at the tables provided.  Bring your own food, or order dinner from the food truck that will be available. 
• Once it is dark, attendees can view the night sky until 11:30 PM through both the 60- and 100-inch telescopes (you can leave at any point in the evening).
• The Los Angeles Astronomical Society will have its telescopes set up around the grounds for viewing different night sky objects.