Join Cedar Amateur Astronomers at 7:30 PM on Saturday, September 13 for a free public event featuring Steve Spangler, Emeritus Professor, University of Iowa. Subject is, "A Photo of the Whole Sky: the Story of the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey". When we look at the night sky from a dark location we can see a big range in the brightness of stars. From the Eastern Iowa Observatory and Learning Center (EIOLC), the energy per second coming through our eyes from the faintest stars is only about 1/100 that of the brightest stars. What would happen if we could see stars 100 times fainter still, and then another factor of 100, and so on? The sky also contains glowing objects that are obviously not stars, but to the casual observer, it is not obvious what they are. How many of these could we see if we could go down in brightness by the same amount? Answering these questions has been a goal of astronomy over the last two to three centuries. A major development occurred in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when sensitive photos were made of the whole sky visible from southern California. This Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS) was a major research tool for decades, and permitted many important discoveries. The University of Iowa has had a copy of this survey since the 1950s.
Weather permitting, telescope viewing will be held after the discussion.
This event is in person and on Zoom. Go to cedar-astronomers.org/events for more information.
