UofT AstroTour: A Quarter Century of Hubble: From Almost Failure to Scientific Icon
Speaker: Elliot Meyer
For 25 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has been our primary eye on the Universe in space. Through it we have vastly expanded our understanding of the Cosmos and our place within it. Not only an amazing scientific instrument, HST has also become a popular science icon. As the successor of Hubble approaches its launch date let’s take a look at why we need telescopes in space, how HST was almost a colossal failure, and how its successor will reach even futher back to the view other worlds and infant galaxies.
About the Speaker
Elliot Meyer is a 4th year PhD candidate in the department of astronomy and astrophysics. He studies populations of stars in other galaxies. To do so he is building the Wide Integral Field Infrared Spectrograph (WIFIS), a novel instrument which will be able to take images of entire galaxies for every colour of light in the near-infrared simultaneously.
The U of T Astronomy Public Tour, or AstroTour, is a monthly event operated by the graduate students of the U of T Astronomy Department. The Tour features a public lecture by a member of the Department on topics ranging from their research to great moments in astronomical history. Following the lecture, tour-goers can peer at the night sky through the Department’s balcony and dome telescopes, or watch a planetarium show run live by astronomer. Admission to the tour is free. Seating for the lecture is on a first-come, first-served basis (doors open ten minutes before the start of the lecture), and the telescope observing is walk-in.
Who can attend: Everyone
Fee: Free
Reservations: Only required for Planetarium Shows (available November 29th at noon)
Organized by: Graduate Astronomy Students Association. The AstroTours are generously financed by the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics and the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Location: University of Toronto, Lash Miller Chemical Laboratories (LM 159), 80 St George St., Toronto, ON M5S 3H6