Tonight’s Host: Dr. Paul Lynam

This Evening’s Events

Concert

White Album Ensemble

The White Album Ensemble is a 5-10 piece ensemble that covers Beatles music, but Beatles music that was never performed live. The Beatles stopped touring in 1966, and began a recording career that yielded the “classics of our time” from “Rubber Soul,” to “Sgt. Peppers,” to “Abbey Road.”

“A must-see show for Beatles fans…”

— Santa Cruz Sentinel

“…musically, they were tighter than a hangman’s noose… an excellent performance…”

— Metro Santa Cruz

Visit White Album Ensemble for more information.

Science Lecture

(presented twice)

Dr. Shelley Wright

University of California, San Diego

“Technosignatures: Innovative New Searches for Extraterrestrial Intelligence”

Dr. Shelley Wright is a faculty member at UC San Diego at the Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences. Her research focuses on developing innovative astronomical instrumentation and observations using some of the world’s largest optical telescopes. She is the Project Scientist for one of the first instruments for the future Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Shelley has been involved with SETI instrumentation and search strategies for over a decade at Lick Observatory.

Tonight’s Telescopes & Objects

Lick Observatory’s 36-inch Great Refractor saw “first light” in 1888. At the time, it was the largest telescope in the world. It is an enduring memorial to James Lick’s philanthropy and his final resting place.

For nearly 300 years after Galileo first turned a telescope toward the heavens it was believed that the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter, had just four moons. In 1892, using the Lick’s 36-inch Great Refractor, Edward Barnard discovered a fifth moon, the much fainter Amalthea, the last moon of any planet to be discovered without the aid of photography, electronic detectors or space-based telescopes.

The 36-inch telescope will show you an interesting astronomical object of the telescope operator’s choosing. This may be a globular cluster of stars, a binary star, or a galaxy.

The Nickel 40-inch Reflector, named for philanthropist Anna Nickel, was designed and built in the Lick Observatory Technical Facilities at UC Santa Cruz and completed in 1979. The 40” diameter mirror of this modern telescope makes it the third most powerful telescope on Mount Hamilton.

Tonight you will view the Turtle Nebula (NGC 6210), a planetary nebula in the constellation Hercules.

Telescope Operators:

36-inch Great Refractor

Keith Wandry | Rolf Weber

40-inch Reflector

Patrick Maloney

40-inch Control Room

Jessica Johnson