23 September 2011
 |
| Professor Mike Bessell |
This year's lecturer is Professor Mike Bessell of the Australian National University. He will give two (different) talks, one in Coonabarabran and one in Dubbo.
Bookings are not required and entry is free.
Dutch-American astronomer Bart Bok came to Australia in 1957. His work
established Siding Spring Observatory as a leader in Southern Hemisphere
astronomy.
In this talk, Professor Mike Bessell (ANU) will describe the legacy of Bart
Bok and his wife Priscilla, and new work going on at the Observatory today.
Date, time and place:
Our Sun is a youngster, formed just 4.5 billion years ago. But the first
stars formed much, much earlier.
In this talk Professor Mike Bessell (Australian National University) will
describe the lives of generations of stars, how they’ve made the iron,
gold, oxygen and other elements around us today, and the hunt for the elusive
first stars.
Date, time and place:
Mike Bessell was born in Hobart and graduated from the University of Tasmania with an honours degree in Physics. He became interested in astronomy after attending a Bart Bok lecture in Hobart and followed this up by becoming a summer student at Mt Stromlo before starting his Honours project in long wavelength radio astronomy in Tasmania. After an enjoyable year as a high school teacher he joined the PhD program at the ANU whilst Bok was still director and became a regular user of the 16 and 40 inch telescopes at the recently established Siding Spring Observatory. After Bok's departure for the University of Arizona, he completed his PhD under the new Director Olin Eggen. Following a post-doctoral position at the Yerkes Observatory Bessell returned to Mt Stromlo in 1969 as a staff member.
Professor Bessell's main research interests are in stellar photometry and
spectroscopy and trying to understand the life cycle of stars, in particular
the oldest stars in the Galaxy. He was one of the first users of the AAO
3.9m telescope and much of his notable work was done with UCLES its high
resolution spectrograph. More recently, he has been using the new spectrograph
on the ANU 2.3m telescope to find the most extreme metal-poor stars in the
galaxy and identifying the nearest and youngest stars that will be examined
for planets with new planet imager on the 8m Gemini telescope. He is also
a founding member of the SkyMapper team.
General enquiries: Helen Sim (AAO) 0419-635-905 or Donna Burton (ANU) 02-6842-6255. To arrange interviews with Prof. Bessell: Helen Sim, 0419-635-905
The Bok lecture is sponsored each year by the Australian Astronomical Observatory. It commemorates astronomer Bart J. Bok, who was the driving force behind the establishment of Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran, NSW. The Observatory is owned by the Australian National University, but is home to telescopes of many institutions, including two telescopes of the Australian Astronomical Observatory.
Bart and Priscilla Bok
Helen Sim (AAO)
0419 635 905
Donna Burton (ANU)
02 6842 6255