Hi FAS folks:
This Monday, April 1, at 7:30 PM at SciWorks, FAS will sponsor a special lecture by hometown astronomer Rick Kendrick. Rick has spent the last 30 years working in the aerospace industry designing and building imaging systems. He is currently a Lockheed Martin Fellow at the Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, California. While Rick is here, he will be presenting a talk on his current areas of research, including:
1. A project involving professional and amateur telescopes to track space debris and satellites. This is a project that seeks input from amateur astronomers. More information on this topic is available at: http://www.spaceviewnetwork.com. Rick is just returning from a trip to Mauna Kea to use the UKIRT, the world’s largest infrared telescope, and he will share these experience with us.
2. A project involving the use of the “Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization (PIAA) coronagraph”, an extremely sensitive instrument that “enables direct imaging of exo-Earths (Earth-mass planets in the habitable zone of their stars) around nearby stars even with a relatively small aperture space telescope.” There will be a pdf posted on the FAS website about this topic.
3. A discussion of stellar interferometers built for a program called “Galileo.” More information can be found at: http://www.darpa.mil/our_work/tto/programs/galileo.aspx
Longtime FAS members will remember Rick’s last presentation to the FAS in the early 90’s, an insightful discussion of the state-of-the-art in atmospheric turbulence cancelling technologies before this information was generally known. Rick was deeply involved in the development of these technologies. It was a cutting edge discussion then and it promises to be this time as well. This is a rare chance to see and hear a hometown professional astronomer present very current topics from professional astronomy.
See you there!
Steve C.
Overview of Technology Development for the Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization (PIAA) Coronagraph
Where: SciWorks
When: April 1, 2013 — 7:30PM
Who: Rick Kendrick – JPL astronomer (and W-S native)
More information will be posted over the next few days.
Dave Morgan is the one to contact about this great event.
Rick Kendrick Program Information