RASNZ Conference 2010 May 28 to 30

The 2010 conference will be held in Dunedin hosted by the Dunedin Astronomical Society who will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of their foundation. You are invited to join us to mark the event.

Conference Venue

Otago Museum	Hutton Theatre

The venue for the conference is the Otago Museum using the Hutton Theatre. For more information about the venue follow the links to "about us" - "facilities hire" - "facilities photo gallery" or go directly to: facility pictures and information. The Hutton Theatre promises to be an excellent conference venue, with plenty of seating room and room for poster displays. The conference dinner will be held in the atrium at the museum.

The after dinner speaker is Peter Hayden of Natural History New Zealand.

Accommodation for the Conference

There is plenty of accommodation available within a very short walking distance of the conference venue. Information of some suitable locations is on the LOC information page

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Invited Speaker, Dr Stuart Ryder

This year's invited speaker will be Dunedin born Dr Stuart Ryder who is the Australian Gemini Scientist, managing the Australian Gemini Office hosted by the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Sydney. Stuart will be presenting two talks over the conference weekend, to conference attendees as invited speaker on Saturday and a more general talk open to the public on Sunday.

Stuart grew up in Dunedin and first joined the Dunedin Astronomical Society in 1981 while attending Kings High School. He spent the next 5 years helping out at public nights at the Beverly Begg Observatory. Together with Mervyn Thomas he experimented with hypersensitised film for astrophotography on the observatory's 30cm Newtonian reflector. In 1986 he moved to Christchurch to pursue an Honours degree in astronomy at the University of Canterbury, followed by a PhD in astronomy at the Mt Stromlo Observatory in Canberra. After postdoctoral stints in Alabama, Sydney, and Hawaii he joined the staff of the Anglo-Australian Observatory in 1999 and currently heads the Australian Gemini Office. Stuart's research interests embrace star birth and death, using optical, infrared, and radio telescopes to study star formation in spiral galaxies as well core-collapse supernovae.

The title of Stuart's invited talk is"Supernovae Revealed by Gemini".
Dr Ryder writes "The twin 8 metre Gemini telescopes in Hawaii and Chile provide a range of instruments ideally suited to the study, and even the discovery of supernovae. I shall begin by describing our findings about Supernova 2001ig, which seems to have had a massive binary companion. I shall also present our discovery of Supernova 2008cs, the first supernova ever found using the cutting edge technology of laser guide star adaptive optics."

For his second talk, Dr. Ryder has chosen the title "CSI Supernova".
He writes "Astronomers who study exploding stars, or 'supernovae', are a lot like police forensic investigators. Alerted to a death in the neighbourhood, they train their telescopes on the scene of the explosion to try and learn more about the star that died; how they died; whether there were other victims, accomplices, or survivors; and perhaps even relive the events leading up to the star's demise. In this talk I will explain how astronomers are using some of the largest telescopes in the world to understand more about the violent deaths of the most massive stars."

Fellow's Lecturer, Bill Allen, FRAS, FRASNZ

The fellows lecture will be given by Bill Allen, FRAS, FRASNZ who has a long association with the Dunedin Astronomical Society. Bill's home site near Blenheim hosts the new 0.6m Yock-Allen Telescope at the BOOTES-3 Observatory.

Bill's title is: "50 Years as an Amateur Astronomer"
Bill writes: "I first became interested in astronomy while at school; however while studying for an electrical engineering degree I joined the Canterbury Astronomical Society and helped establish the West Melton Observatory. My first telescope was a 6 inch f6 Newtonian. The Fellows talk will cover my experiences from this early beginning to the present day, the people I have met, the telescopes I have built, the observatories I have visited and some of the observations I have made, including my introduction to photoelectric photometry at the Beverly Begg Observatory."

After Dinner Speaker, Peter Hayden

The after dinner speaker will be Peter Hayden of Natural History New Zealand.

Peter Hayden has worked in the film and television industry for more than twenty years, making nature, science, health and adventure documentaries for the international market. During that time he has worked in a variety of roles with NHNZ Ltd, a Dunedin based documentary production Company owned by 20th Century Fox TV.

He was writer, producer, narrator and host for multi-award winning Wild South and Wild Track series. As producer, he has worked with co-producers and broadcasters in the US, Canada, UK, Japan, Australia, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Chile, Brazil, France, Germany and Holland.

As Head of Development at NHNZ (1996-2000) he way responsible for widening the company's production focus on natural history to Include health, science, history, archaeology and adventure. He also helped develop successful co-productions between NHNZ and China.

His programmes have received many awards including two international Emmy nominations. He is currently producing a science series about evolution of strange creatures that live on islands and other isolated locations. It asks, how did they get there and how did they become so 'weird'?

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Full list of Speakers and Titles notified to date.

Links are provided to abstracts where these have been provided

Dr Stuart Ryder: "Supernovae Revealed by Gemini".
Dr Stuart Ryder: "CSI Supernova", - Public address Sunday afternoon.
Bill Allen: "50 Years as an Amateur Astronomer."
Emily Brunsden: "An Introduction to Astroseismology."
Steve Butler: "Shining Light on Light Pollution."
Ian Cooper: "Film ... Still a Viable Entry Level Medium for Astro-imaging."
Norman Dickie: "Murray Geddes."
Ross Dickie: "A Noctilucent Cloud Observed from Gore."
Steve Gibson: "KiwiSpec: An Astronomical Spectrograph for Small to Medium-sized Telescopes."
Sergei Gulyaev: "Updates on the Square Kilometre Array and AUT's radio telescope."
Marilyn Head: "IYA: Lessons to be Learned."
John Hearnshaw: "Can we find Earth-mass Planets Orbiting our Nearest Star, alpha Centauri?"
Warwick Kissling: "Zernike Polynomials and their Applications in Optics and Astronomy"
Brian Loader: "Mutual Events of the Satellites of Jupiter and Saturn in 2009"
Euan Mason: "What's up with the Sun?"
Florian Maisonneuve: "Studying Asteroseismology through Spectroscopy."
Gregor Morgan: "Yet Another Small Step."
Karen Pollard: "Astronomy at the University of Canterbury."
David Ramm and John Hearnshaw: "Incredible nu Octantis, a Close Binary with a Possible Planet."
Dr Thomas Richards: "The Lure of Eclipsing Binary Stars"
Denis Sullivan: "Why are White Dwarf Stars so Interesting?"
Lynne Taylor: "Astronomy in Otago - the long view."
Alan Thomas: "It's All Done With Mirrors (a quick tour of atmospheric science activities at NIWA, Lauder)"
Stan Walker: Bright Cepheids for Visual Observers".
Phil Yock: "From Gravitational Microlensing to Plasma Wakefield Acceleration."
Peter Hayden, after dinner speaker.

Poster Papers.

Col Bembrick and Bill Allen: "Modelling with Binary Maker 3"
Dr Thomas Richards: "VSS/BAA Equatorial Eclipsing Binaries Project"
Stan Walker and Glen Schrader: "Charts for Bright Low Amplitude Variables"
Glen Schrader and Stan Walker: "Visual Observational Accuracy"

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Taieri Gorge Scenic Train trip

The LOC has arranged for a group booking on the Taieri Gorge train on the Friday afternoon of conference. The return time leaves plenty of time for a meal before conference. More details are on the LOC information page. You can book your seat on the conference registration form.

Further details of the trip are available on the Taieri Gorge site.