Conference programme, Friday evening to Sunday afternoon.
Colloquium: Studying Southern Variables Symposium: Occultation Symposium Launch of the new VSS
The 2009 RASNZ conference will be held in Wellington at the Quality Inn in Cuba Street. The dates of the conference are Friday May 22 to Sunday May 24. The conference is being hosted by the Wellington Astronomical Society.
Registrations can still be made on line, by email or by post but should arrive by May 14.
The 3-star Comfort Hotel is immediately next to, and physically linked with, the Quality Inn. It offers adequate accommodation at lower prices than the Quality Inn. Both share the same reception area.
When making an accommodation booking at either venue make sure you mention that you are part of the RASNZ conference. A number of rooms at both venues have been reserved for conference attendees.
Variable Star Colloquium: A full day colloquium with the theme Studying Southern Variables is planned for the Friday. This will precede the opening of the conference on Friday evening. The colloquium is planned as the first of a two-yearly series to bring together southern Variable Star observers.
Occultation Symposium: The conference will be followed by a two day Occultation Symposium and workshop which is planned for Monday 25 May and Tuesday 26 May. This follows up on the Occultation Symposium held as part of the 2008 NACAA meeting held at Penrith, New South Wales.
Invited Speaker: Professor Fulvio Melia will be the invited speaker for the conference. He will be describing some of the recent advances in our knowledge of Supermassive Black Holes, abstract. Fulvio is author of the book "The Black Hole at the Center of the Galaxy" and a forthcoming book about New Zealander Roy Kerr, discoverer of the solution to Einstein's equation for a rotating black hole.
Guest Speaker: We will also welcome Dr Chris Fluke of the Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing as a guest speaker. He will be describing the process of a 3-d astro-movie.
Opening Speaker: The 2009 Conference will be formally opened on the Friday evening by Dr. Helen Anderson. Dr. Anderson is the CEO of the Ministry of Research Science and Technology (MORST).
Further details of the conference and the symposia will be placed on this web site as they become available.
Closing dates for submission of abstracts and the final paper are included on the submission form.
A colloquium on Studying Southern Variables will be held prior to the 2009 RASNZ Annual conference in Wellington on Friday the 22nd May 2009 commencing at 10:30am and concluding at 5:30pm. The colloquium will consider the science of observing variable stars visually, photoelectrically and with CCD cameras.
The colloquium will be organised by Dr Tom Richards, Woodridge Observatory, Melbourne; Bill Allen, Vintage Lane Observatory, Blenheim; and Stan Walker Wharemaru Observatory, Awanui; who are experienced variable star observers. While we expect many very interesting items from the CCD and PEP fields, one of our objectives is to encourage visual observations, a field which is very important over the long term.
The colloquium will consist of 20 minute papers and posters on any topic concerning variable stars and their observation including observing projects, equipment and techniques. Proposals for presentations should be submitted to any of the organisers.
The venue for the colloquium and the RASNZ conference is the Quality Inn, Cuba Street, Central Wellington. We look forward to see you there.
Contacts: Tom Richards Bill Allen Stan Walker Launch of the new Variable Stars South.
Fulvio Melia is professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Arizona, and the editor
of the Series in Astrophysics at the University of Chicago Press. Raised in Australia, he moved
to the United States to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he
obtained his Ph.D. in Physics in 1985. Since then, he has been a postdoctoral fellow at the
Enrico Fermi Institute in Chicago, a Presidential Young Investigator (with President Ronald
Reagan), and a Sloan Foundation Research Fellow, and has now been at the University of Arizona
for the past 17 years.
Fulvio has held numerous visiting Professorships in Europe, Australia and (most recently) at Canterbury University in Christchurch, where he completed a biography of one of the most influential general relativists of the 20th century - New Zealand's own Roy Kerr. He has published over 250 articles in scientific journals, primarily on the subject of relativistic matter and black holes, and has written 6 books, some for professional scientists, but several also for the general public. He is a frequent speaker at public venues not only in the United States, but also in Europe and Australasia, and has delivered keynote addresses at the European Astronomical Society in London, and at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, among others. His most recent book is entitled "Cracking the Einstein Code," the story of how Roy Kerr and his fellow general relativitists finally solved Einstein's unfathomable equations of general relativity in the 1960's.
In his talk at the conference, Professor Melia will describe some of the recent advances in our knowledge of Supermassive Black Holes.
The RASNZ thanks the United States of America Wellington embassy for their support in bringing Dr Fulvio Melia to New Zealand for the conference and the IYA.
Dr Chris Fluke joined the Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing in 1999. For five
years, he led the Centre's virtual reality projects team, acting as writer, director and
occasionally animator of 3-d stereoscopic movies that have been shown throughout Australia and
internationally. His main research interests are in cosmological gravitational lensing and
astronomy visualisation, in particular looking at new ways for astronomers to explore and
present their datasets with advanced displays and innovative 3-d publication techniques.
He is a member of the Commonwealth Cosmology Initiative - a major project funded by the
Australian Research Council that aims to enhance Australia's expertise in computational
cosmology. Chris is a keen science communicator and astronomy educator, who speaks regularly to
school groups and the public.
In his talk at the conference, Dr Fluke will describe the process of creating a 3-d movie from science to screen.
The RASNZ thanks the Australian High Commission for their support of Dr Fluke's visit to New Zealand.
