By Frank Hanson
The community is invited to an interactive, engaging program on astronomy. University of Washington graduate students from the Department of Astronomy will lead a science-based experience to discover more about the skies above. They’re bringing their mobile planetarium to Forks to provide a close-up view of the night sky. They also will be bringing a telescope and have other activities. Two programs will be held Saturday, Sept. 10, with a family-focused program to be held from 1-3 p.m., with a later program for adults from 7-9 p.m. Both afternoon and evening programs will be in the Hemlock Forest Room.
The planetarium shows are about 20 minutes long so groups of people can cycle through the performances or come back in for a repeat viewing. In addition to the planetarium show there will be other activities including a PowerPoint presentation and the use of a telescope. The afternoon session will include kid-focused presentations and activities, while the evening session will include more in-depth presentations.
The presenters are Rodrigo Luger, John Lurie, Margaret Lazzarini, Phoebe Sanderbeck and Diana Windemuth. All of these students volunteer their time to put on this great effort for our community. Luger is a fifth-year PhD student searching for planets around other stars and trying to understand whether or not they may be habitable. Lurie is a fourth-year graduate student interested in binary star systems and the structure of the Milky Way. Lazzarini is a second-year PhD student at the university focusing on high energy astronomy, currently working to categorize the X-ray source population in Andromeda. Sanderbeck is a fifth-year PhD student whose research forces on the physics of the early universe. Windemuth is a fourth-year graduate student working on detecting and characterizing extra-solar planets orbiting binary stars.
The planetarium’s dome, created by the company Go-Dome, is an inflatable room resembling an igloo. At approximately 10 feet high and 20 feet across, the dome can fit about two dozen viewers. It is a fully functional planetarium that offers many of the same images as the high-tech planetarium located on university campus.
The planetarium runs Microsoft Research’s World Wide Telescope software on a laptop computer. A large hemispherical mirror projects the high-density image from the back of the dome across three-quarters of its interior.
The planetarium brings modern astronomy down from space and into the schools and community, providing viewers an immersive experience of the Universe.
Evening Talk: New Modeling Tools for Ocean Acidification and Harmful Algal Blooms on the Washington CoastPlease join us for the Evening talk with Dr. Parker MacCready, University of Washington School of Oceanography. This presentation will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13, at UW Olympic Natural Resources Center, Forks. The presentation will be in the Hemlock Forest Conference Room.
The coastal waters of Washington are highly productive, due the upwelling of nutrients. However, that same upwelling also brings water that is naturally more acidic than surface waters offshore. This, combined with ocean acidification due to human addition of CO2 to the atmosphere, has caused serious problems for shellfish growers because larval oysters cannot survive the corrosive conditions.
Another threat, especially for razor clams, is the harmful algal blooms that often close our beaches to harvest. I will describe a new tool we have developed to help understand and respond to these issues: the LiveOcean daily forecast model. LiveOcean makes a three-day forecast of ocean conditions every day, much like a weather model, including biological and chemical properties.
MacCready has been on the faculty at the UW School of Oceanography since 1994, specializing in the physics of ocean circulation in coastal and estuarine regions. He collaborates with chemists and biologists to build realistic computer models of ocean circulation and biogeochemistry. He received his PhD in 1991 from UW, a master’s from Caltech in 1986 and is an author on more than 50 publications.
Links: http://faculty.washington.edu/pmacc/LO/LiveOcean.html http://nvs.nanoos.org/Explorer?action=overlay: liveoceantemp
Evening Talks at ONRC is funded through the Rosmond Forestry Education Fund, an endowment that honors the contributions of Fred Rosmond and his family to forestry, ongoing educational awareness and the Forks community. Refreshments will be served and a potluck of your favorite dessert is encouraged.
For more information, contact Frank Hanson at 374-4556 or fsh2@uw.edu. The ONRC is at 1455 S. Forks Ave., Forks. What a great couple of events to start the fall “Evening Talk” series off with. Hope to see you here!
